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Three Ltectares 
On ^Vlissiops 



H. H. HARRIS 



{ MN 301896/ 



AMERICAN 

BAPTIST PUBLICATION 

SOCIETY 



THREE 



LECTURES ON MISSIONS 



^/ BY 

H. H. HARRIS, D. D., LL. D. 

Professor in Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 



JAN 301R9fi, 



PHILADELPHIA 

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 



1895 



wo 



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K" 



Copyright 1895 by the 
American Baptist Publication Society 



I The Library 
OF Congress 

WASHINGTON 



^OYirigly iJriscribed 

TO 
Rev, henry ALLEN TUPPER, D. D. 

OF Richmond, Va. 

My teacher in missions, 
and helpful adviser in preparing these Lectures, 



CONTENTS 



I. Some Basal Principles, 9 

II. Method of Missions, 43 

III. A Wider View, "](> 



INTRODUCTION 



In the year 1 894, Rev. William D. Gay, of Mont- 
gomery^ Ala., formerly a student at the Southern 
Baptist Theological Seminary, gave an endowment 
of five thousand dollars, to be invested and held by 
the trustees, and the annual interest used in pro- 
curing, every session, a short course of lectures be- 
fore the faculty, students, and friends of the insti- 
tution. By request of the donor and in respect to 
the memory of his honored father, it is called the 
JiUiics Brown Gay Fund. 

The name thus pleasantly and usefully perpetu- 
ated, and forever associated with wider culture for 
our coming ministry, had been worthily worn by one 
who was born in North Carolina, September 9, 1830, 
and died in Montgomery, Ala., December 31, 1887. 
The family is of Scotch-Irish descent and a branch 
was established in this country by James Gay, who, 
a mere boy, in 17 10 came over from the north of 
Ireland and found a home in Iredell County, N. C. 
Julius Brown Gay, a grandson of this James Gay, 
removed, in early life, to the northwestern part 
of Alabama, where he was a neighbor and friend 
of the Hon J. L. M. Curry, so long a member of 
Congress from that district. At the close of the 
war, Mr. Gay removed to Montgomery, engaged 
largely in business, wholesale and retail, and by 
energy and intelligence amassed a considerable for- 
tune. He was devoted, as his ancestors had been 



8 INTRODUCTION 

in the old country and in the new, to the principles 
held by Baptists, was an earnest, active Christian, 
and specially remarkable for his splendid capacity 
for affairs, his clearness of thought, and his wide 
and accurate reading. 

The trust offered by his son was accepted with 
cordial thanks, and preparations to carry out the 
purpose in view were at once begun under the di- 
rection of the then president. Dr. John A. Broadus. 
At his instance. Dr. H. H. Harris, at that time 
professor of Greek in Richmond College, Va., and 
president of the Foreign Mission Board of the 
Southern Baptist Convention, elected since to a 
chair in the Seminary, v/as invited to deliver the 
initial course, and the time was set for the closing 
days of March, 1895. When the time came, the 
Seminary was shrouded in mourning over the recent 
death of him who had made all the arrangements, 
and the duty of presiding on the occasion and pre- 
paring this Introduction devolved on the under- 
signed. 

The lectures proved to be a calm, full, almost ex- 
haustive discussion of the scriptural basis of mis- 
sions in the several phases treated. They were re- 
ceived with enthusiasm by the entire Seminary and 
a large circle of intelligent listeners. 

They are now offered to a wider public in the 
hope that the profound thoughts they embody may 
arouse deeper and more intelligent interest in fur- 
therance of our Lord's great command. May his 
favor crown this effort to advance his cause ! 

Wm. H. Whitsitt. 

Louisville, Dec, 2, 18Q5. 



THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES 

TT is assumed that all present accept the Bible as 
-■- an inspired revelation of the true religion, and 
as the sufficient and only authoritative declaration 
of what is obligatory in Christian faith and prac- 
tice. In seeking, therefore, a sure foundation for 
Christian missions, we turn to the Scriptures, and 
especially to those portions written in the first cen- 
tury of our era, and ask what they teach in refer- 
ence to the duty of evangelizing the nations, on 
whom responsibility for this work is devolved, and 
what constitutes a call to personal service. Other 
interesting questions pertaining to the method of 
missions, must be reserved for another lecture. 

To these questions we find answers partly in ex- 
plicit precepts, about which doubt is infidelity ; 
partly in approved example, wherein we must con- 
sider how far it embodied universal principles, 
equally applicable in all times and all lands, how far 



lO THREE IvECTURES ON MISSIONS 

it was modified by the apostolic rule of being in 
matters of mere expediency *^all things to all 
men," and therefore to be adjusted to ever-chang- 
ing conditions ; and partly, we must depend on in- 
ference, more or less trustworthy according^ to its 
clearness and directness. 

I. THE DUTY OF EVANGELIZING ALL PEOPLES. 

This is so clear, so often asserted, so essential to 
the whole scheme and genius of the gospel, that 
urging it here would be superfluous. 

I . The Teaching of Scripture. 

In the Old Testament, — Abraham, brought from 
beyond the river to found a separate family, re- 
joiced in the promise of a seed in whom '' all the 
nations of the earth should be blessed" (Gen. 22 : 
18). The prophets, while warning the people 
against alien influence, saw in the distance the 
promised seed set *^ for a light to the Gentiles, to 
be for salvation unto the end of the earth " (Isa. 
49 : 6), a prediction which Paul interpreted as a 
command (Acts 1 3 : 47). The light grew clearer 
as the time drew nigh, till good old Simeon took 
the infant Jesus in his arms and blessed God for the 
" salvation prepared before the face of all peoples^ a 



SOME BASAL. PRINCIPLES II 

light for revelation to the Gentiles" (Luke 2 : 31, 

32). 

In the New Testament, — During his earthly life 
our Lord wrought mainly for the house of Israel, but 
after his resurrection he explained "that repentance 
and remission of sins should be preached in his 
name unto all the nations " (Luke 24 : 47), and 
thereto commissioned his followers to go and 
"make disciples of all the nations" (Matt. 28 : 19), 
endued them with power from on high, and prom- 
ised to be with them unto the end of the world. 
Paul directed much of the intense energy that con- 
sumed his bodily presence, and no small part of the 
fervent logic of his strong and weighty letters, to 
the elucidation of the mystery " that the Gentiles 
are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, 
and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus 
through the gospel " (Eph. 3 : 6). 

The Co7nniand of Christ. — There fell into my 
hands not long ago a neat volume entitled, "Our 
Word and Work for Missions," issued last year 
from the Universalist Publishing House, Boston. 
To a paper on the "Philosophy of Missions" I 
turned with some curiosity to see what the writer 
whose three cardinal and closely connected doctrines 
are the universal Fatherhood of God, the universal 
Brotherhood of man, and universal Redemption in 



12 THREE) LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

Christ, would assign as a reason why men shall go 
and give and toil to spread Christianity. After 
citing the commission he says : ^^ It seems strange 
that men professing the Christian religion should 
question the wisdom of missions, should doubt the 
policy of undertaking them, or should cast about 
for some philosophical ground for engaging in them, 
in the face of the direct command of Christ him- 
self." Let me add that after this excellent begin- 
ning, the essayist proceeds to point out the civil- 
izing, educational, and generally uplifting human- 
itarianism of the gospel, and concludes with a 
forceful presentation of the reflex influence of mis- 
sions in vitalizing the home churches. 

2. Why so Neglected? 

But some one may ask, Why has the duty, if it is 
so clear, been so much neglected.^ Why is it so 
lacking in power over the minds and hearts of 
godly men } Why did the Universalist just cited 
wait till 1 890 to undertake foreign mission work } 
Why did the great mass of evangelical Christians 
let centuries elapse and only begin to awake slowly 
within the last one hundred years t Or, to go back 
to the first century of Christian activity, why did 
Peter, with all his opportunities, require a thrice 
repeated vision and rebuke, clear and supernatural 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPI.es 1 3 

manifestations of providence and word and Spirit, 
before he would offer salvation to the devout centu- 
rion ? Why did Saul of Tarsus, separated even 
from his birth and specially called to preach Christ 
among the Gentiles (Gal. i : 15, i6), wait in Arabia 
three years after his conversion, then audaciously 
argue the matter with his Lord in the temple (Acts 
22 : 19-21), and even when under peremptory or- 
ders to "depart far hence unto the Gentiles," spend 
some eight years in Cilicia and Syria, till once more 
called and sent forth ? 

Selfishness. — Some partial answer to these ques- 
tions may be found in the sad fact that selfishness 
is a dominant principle in this world. Altruria is 
not on any terrestrial map. The beginnings of 
a Christian life have reference largely to self. The 
penitent smites upon his breast and prays, " Have 
mercy on me the sinner " ; the anxious inquirer asks, 
**What must I do to be saved " ; the young convert 
sings, " Oh happy day, that fixed my choice." The 
business of an infant is to take its milk and sleep 
and grow ; but before becoming a man he must 
learn to subsist on solid food and to put forth ac- 
tivities that reach beyond himself. Alas, how 
many are but "babes in Christ"! (i Cor. 3:1). 
How few practically believe what " he himself said, 
It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 



14 THREE I.ECTURES ON MISSIONS 

20 : 3 5). The spirit of self-sacrifice, the grace of 
giving, outgoing love for humanity, is an exotic 
from a far-off sunny clime, imported into this world 
when Jesus came to seek the lost, to give himself 
for us, to make the one perfect sacrifice. It re- 
quires constant care as well as copious showers and 
sunshine from its native heaven to make it flourish 
and bear fruit in our sterile soil and chilling atmos- 
phere. The most depressing fact in connection with 
Christianity is the failure of its adherents to live up 
to their privileges, and the bane of mission work is 
the indifference of so many Christian people. 

Pride, — Another and even sadder fact is that we 
are proud, and therefore prone to think of ourselves 
as God's elect and other peoples as given up to vile 
passions. Some excellent brethren fall back upon 
the sovereignty of God, having mercy on whom he 
will, and hardening whom he will (Rom. 9 : 18). 
The potter has made us, they say, vessels unto 
honor, others vessels of wrath fitted for destruc- 
tion. But why were these great doctrines written 
out in the Epistle to the Romans } Was it not 
because the writer felt himself a debtor to all men } 
(Rom 1:14.) Thou that restest upon divine sov- 
ereignty, dost thou not hear the marching orders of 
the King } Behold, to obey the sovereign is better 
than to prate about sovereignty. 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPI.es 15 

II. WHERE THE OBLIGATION RESTS. 

We live in an age of corporations and combina- 
tions. Now, as never before in the history of hu- 
manity, men appreciate that '* in union there is 
strength." The means of intercommunication de- 
veloped in our day and still progressing with mar- 
velous rapidity, have made great organizations 
easier and more effective. The ends of the earth 
are brought close together. We read this morning 
of important events that occurred yesterday in 
every quarter of the globe. The whole world is 
fast becoming a single body with wires for nerves, 
rails for arteries, throbbing engines for a heart, 
bank bills and drafts for circulation, delicate ma- 
chinery instead of hands, and swift locomotives in 
place of feet. Thus it is possible for one man in 
a central office, as it were a cell in the human brain, 
to direct thousands of miles of railway, or to regu- 
late the supply of some of the necessaries of civi- 
lized life. Division of labor, co-operation, socialism, 
is the order of the day. Even in the sports of 
schoolboys, organized and trained "teams" have 
supplanted the old-fashioned games in which we 
used to play "every man for himself," and an 
"umpire" exercises the prerogatives of a personal 
conscience. All this evidently and strongly tends 



l6 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

to repress individuality, to minimize the sense of 
separate responsibility. 

I . Organizations for Benevolence. 

Christianity being suited to all men everywhere, 
is flexible in its appliances. Its principles remain 
unchanged ; its external manifestations partake of 
the coloring, the language, the modes of thought 
of the times and the people. Hundreds of great 
foreign mission societies, with their executive offi- 
cers and Boards of management, organizations un- 
necessary and in fact impossible in the first cen- 
tury, have in this latter end of the nineteenth im- 
portant functions. They gather the myriad rain- 
drops of personal offerings into rills, and rivulets, 
and streams, and rivers. Their work is, by scatter- 
ing information, to develop and systematize the 
liberality of Christian people ; by care and corre- 
spondence, to select the fittest from among many 
who volunteer to go to the front ; by drawing con- 
tributions from a wide area, to furnish the selected 
ones a steady and reliable support ; and by accu- 
mulating the results of varied experience and 
calmly surveying the whole field, to post these 
pickets advantageously and help them to co-operate 
cordially for the common end. Dr. Pierson has 
well said : " William Carey was the pioneer, not of 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES 17 

missions so much as of organization." The only 
consistent opponents of organized mission work 
are also and on the same ground opposed to Sun- 
day-schools and Bible societies — and even they are 
not consistent, for they print their views and dis- 
tribute them by mail, ride on railways and steam- 
boats, and send messages by telegraph and tele- 
phone, though well knowing that the apostles did 
none of these things. 

Biogenesis. — Combination for Christian activity, 
so characteristic of these times, vastly increases 
the danger of overlooking the cardinal doctrine of 
personal responsibility. Societies and Boards as 
such are merely machines for the accumulation and 
transmission of force. In them is no spiritual 
potency beyond that of the component individuals. 
No machine of human contrivance generates power. 
In the power-house of your electric railway the. 
engine by combustion converts a portion of th^ 
energy that was locked up in the coal into an ex- 
pansive force, and this again by piston and crank 
and band, into violent magnetic disturbance, that 
can be conveyed on wires and applied to lighting 
or heating or the turning of wheels. The origin 
of all force, if we trace it back and back to its 
beginning, is found in spirit, in life ; in that myste- 
rious something which eludes the keenest analysis 



l8 THREE I.ECTURES ON MISSIONS 

and flies before the sharpest scalpel, something 
which God freely bestows, but man can merely 
transmit. The only life that can reanimate a soul 
*'dead through trespasses and sins'' (Eph. 2:1) 
was manifested in him who said, '' I am the resur- 
rection and the life." Men lay hold of this life 
through faith, but how shall they believe without a 
preacher.^ (Rom. 10 : 14, 15.) 

Ministry of Aitgels, — John, in the Apocalypse, 
saw an '' angel flying in mid-heaven, having an eter- 
nal gospel to proclaim . . . unto every nation and 
tribe and tongue and people " (Rev. 14 : 6). What 
was the angel's gospel } " Fear God, and give him 
glory ; for the hour of his judgment is come." 
For the suffering saints whose warfare is accom- 
plished, for the souls of the martyrs who '' cry from 
beneath the altar" (Rev. 6 : 9) this was good news, 
but doom for unbelievers. Of the three whom 
Abram entertained at Mamre, one listened to his 
intercession and is called the Lord ; the two who went 
down to destroy Sodom and rescue Lot were angels. 
They minister blessings to the heirs of salvation j 
their ministry to others is to gather the tares into 
bundles and burn them. They have not known 
redeeming love and cannot tell its sweetness. The 
ministry of reconciliation is committed to men, to 
earthen vessels, that the glory may be God's (2 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES I9 

Cor. 4 : 5-5 : 19). It is only by the life that is 
hid with Christ in God and implanted through faith 
in the individual Christian that vital Christianity is 
to be spread abroad in the earth. 

2. The Church and the Individual, 

In two-thirds of current missionary literature 
appeal is made to *^the Church," and in a large 
moiety of the rest to *^the churches." Baptist 
folk magnify the one organization which has the 
unmistakable sanction of our Lord and of his in- 
spired apostles. We insist upon the importance of 
the local church, its separate sovereignty, subject 
only to the heavenly Head, and its complete suffi- 
ciency for all forms of Christian work. It is '*a 
pillar and ground of the truth" (Tim. 3:15), an 
evergreen and fruitful olive tree, a golden lamp- 
stand ; an organization of baptized believers for the 
maintenance of public w^orship, for the preserva- 
tion of pure doctrine as taught in the word and 
embodied in the ordinances, and for the mutual 
edification of the members. One of its foremost 
duties is to uphold the light in the community by 
means of regular preaching of the gospel. Some 
of the so-called Catholic churches with orders in 
their ministry, each vowing obedience to the next 
above, claim and exercise not a little of all the de- 



20 THRKK LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

partments of governmental power. But a Baptist 
church has no legislative authority — it can only in- 
terpret and apply what the Lawgiver has laid dow^n. 
Nor has it ability to wield executive functions. It 
is and must be chiefly judicial, therefore mainly 
restraining and conservative. Without a number 
of these firmly set corner-stones, there would in 
this progressive age be little hope of long conserv- 
ing the fundamental principles of a pure Christian- 
ity. The country churches scattered all over our 
land and furnishing preachers for the denomination 
are our great bulwark against the flood of imported 
notions. 

Personal Responsibility, — We all agree that 
churches ought to be composed solely of regener- 
ated people and ought to afford facilities for all 
kinds of Christian work. We also agree that 
every converted person ought to be connected with 
and work through a local church. But let us draw 
a distinction. It may seem at first vague and 
shadowy; perhaps on further thought it will become 
clear and important. Can we discriminate between 
duties devolved upon us as church-members and 
duties devolved upon us as Christians } Between 
what we owe to the church and what we owe to the 
Christ } It is our duty, for example, to attend 
prayer meetings at the appointed times and places. 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES 21 

It is also our duty to enter into our closets and 
pi ay to the Father who seeth in secret. Is there 
not here a discernible difference ? So again, it is 
our duty to join with our brethren at stated times 
in the memorial supper ; but also all the time to 
hold communion with Christ. For building and 
taking care of a house of worship, for pastor's 
salary and other such expenses, a specified sum is 
needed year by year ; what you or I ought to give 
depends in part upon the number and ability of out 
brethren. For the spread of the gospel beyond 
our community the measure of my duty is not at 
all dependent on my brethren. Pastoral support is 
a matter of debt ; for missions we want gifts. The 
church can and should urge upon every member 
the duty, rather the privilege, and should provide 
facilities for gathering and forwarding contribu- 
tions ; but the New Testament seems to me to lay 
the duty of prosecuting mission w^ork not so much 
upon the churches, organized bodies, as upon the 
individual Christian heart and conscience. 

As this view diverges from the commonly received 
way of speaking, I must beg you to have patience 
and follow closely 'an examination of the Scriptures. 
Observe, please, the precise point of the question. It 
is not whether the churches as such have any obliga- 
tion to the cause of missions, nor whether Christian 



22 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

people ought to work through their several churches. 
In both these the speaker would join the most pro- 
nounced of his hearers in an emphatic affirmative. 
But did the Lord of glory lay the duty of spread- 
ing his gospel upon the churches as organized 
bodies or upon the men and women who compose 
them ? Is there in the New Testament, precept or 
example that enjoins upon churches to select, ap- 
point, send forth and support, heralds of salvation 
to the nations that sit in darkness and the shadow 
of death ? 

3. Scripture Teaching, 

The Commission, — The repeated manifestations 
of our risen Lord, appearing for a little while and 
then vanishing, seem to have been designed first, 
to prove the reality of his bodily resurrection ; 
secondly, to educate his followers out of their de- 
pendence on his visible presence ; and thus, thirdly, 
to prepare them for the work they were to do w^hen 
clothed with power (Greek, duvafjic^, working powei) 
from on high. On the appointed mountain he gave 
to the eleven and perhaps five hundred others (i 
Cor. 15:6) the commission as recorded in Matthew. 
Just before his ascension from Olivet he repeated 
substantially the same charge as recorded in Luke 
and Acts. There is nothing to indicate that they 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES 23 

met on either occasion as a local church. ^ Indeed, 
when Peter on the lake shore (and this was probably 
just before the mountain meeting) asked about an- 
other's duty, the answer came short and sharp, '* If 
I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to 
thee? follow thou me" (John 21 : 22). Individual 
responsibility could hardly be more emphatically 
enjoined. 

Jerusalem. — The church at Jerusalem, forming 
itself by elective ajffinity, was cemented by assaults 
from without and by troubles within, and all re- 
mained in the city. A great persecution scattered 
them abroad, as we might say, broke up the church, 
and then they severally '^ went about preaching the 
w^ord" (Acts 8 : 4). The apostles sent Peter and 
John down to Samaria (8 : 14, 15), and later the 

1 It may be argued that as the command to observe the Lord's 
Supper, given at first to the Eleven, was subsequently recognized as a 
church ordinance (l Cor. 10 : 16, 17 ; 1 1 : 1 7-34), so the commission 
to make disciples, baptizing and teaching them, became the duty of 
churches, as Christ's representatives, so soon as they were organized. 
Even so, in communities where such churches have been established ; 
but the rule could not apply to mission work such, for example, as 
Philip's (Acts 8 : 26-30). The conservative functions of the local 
church (see p. 20), are sufficiently guarded by requiring, as hereinafter 
stated (p. 40) , approval by the church from which a missionary goes 
out, and by transferring to a church on the mission field, so soon as 
one can be properly organized, responsibilities which, until that time, 
the missionaries themselves must bear. 



24 THREE I.ECTURES ON MISSIONS 

partially reassembled church sent forth Barnabas 
as far as Antioch (i i : 22), but both these missions 
were rather to inspect and confirm than to extend 
the work. When Peter had preached at Caesarea, 
the brethren contended with him for visiting the 
uncircumcised (i i : 2, 3), and he had to defend him- 
self against the church by reciting the proofs that 
God sent him. Paul, during his missionary labors, 
went up several times to Jerusalem with contribu- 
tions for the poor saints, or to declare what God 
had wrought among the Gentiles, or to worship, and 
on these occasions met his brethren in Christ, but 
there is no hint that he or they looked upon him 
as their missionary. Such is the record of the 
mother church. 

Antioch. — How was it with the new center, the 
mixed assembly of Jews and Greeks on the Orontes } 
It is commonly held that this church sent out Bar- 
nabas and Saul. Read carefully the account as 
given (Acts 13 : 1-4). There were at Antioch five 
prophets and teachers, mentioned by name. The 
Holy Spirit directed the setting apart of two of 
them for special work. After fasting and prayer 
and imposition of hands, these two were ** sent 
forth by the Holy Ghost.'' According to the plain 
structure of the sentences and the obvious refer- 
ence of the pronoun ''they" (ver. 2, 3), the human 



SOME BASAI, PRINCIPLES 25 

instrumentalities in this sending were the prophets 
and teachers. The only reference to the church is 
in the subordinate and peculiarly expressed clause, 
xaza TT^v ohaav exxlr^aiav — rendered ** in the church 
that was there," more accurately by Meyer, ''with 
the existing church." It is apparently introduced 
because certainly four and probably all five of the 
prophets and teachers had been born and reared 
elsewhere and were only temporarily in Antioch. 
To put the matter in modern phrase, a number of 
preachers had gathered at Antioch and were con- 
ducting a protracted meeting, when the Spirit sepa- 
rated two of them for mission work. 

But it is argued that on their return " they gath- 
ered the church together and rehearsed what God 
had done with them " (14 : 27), in modern phrase, 
made report of their mission. The argument is 
not valid, for on a trip undertaken soon after, they 
made similar reports through Phoenicia and Sama- 
ria and in Jerusalem to '* the church and the apostles 
and elders" (15 13, 4), and there is no semblance 
of claim that these had sent them out. When the 
two missionaries parted and each went his own way 
(15: 40) Paul was '' commended by the brethren to 
the grace of the Lord," but there is no hint that 
the church as a body, or the brethren composing 
it, adopted or directed either Barnabas or Paul, or 



25 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

contributed for their expenses, or had any voice in 
their going. When Paul was there once more, the 
record is simply that '^ having spent some time he 
departed" (i8 : 23). We are forced to conclude 
that there is no proof that the church at Antioch, 
as a church, ever sent out a missionary. 

Other Churches, — From the church of the Thes- 
salonians sounded forth the word of the Lord in 
Macedonia and Achaia and everywhere (i Thess. 
I : 8), but the context shows that it was by the 
splendid example of their faith and joy in the midst 
of much affliction. The brethren '^ sent away Paul 
and Silas by night," and from Beroea again to 
Athens (Acts 17 : 10, 14) only to save him from 
mob violence. A certain brother " was appointed 
by the churches to travel with" Paul (2 Cor. 8 : 19), 
not, however, as missionary, but, as the context 
shows, simply a collecting agent, who then, as 
now, would need such endorsement. 

Philippi. — The nearest approach to what would 
now be called an active missionary church that I 
have been able to find in the New Testament, is 
that noble band begun by the opening of Lydia's 
heart at the river side and strengthened by the con- 
version of the jailer and his house. Paul's letter to 
the saints at Philippi opens with expressions of 
gratitude for their '' fellowship (or as I should unhesi- 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES 27 

tatingly render, contribittio7is) in furtherance of the 
gospel " (i : 5), and closes with thanks for similar 
fellowship with his affliction, even as, while he was 
yet in Thessalonica, they had ^^ sent once and again 
unto his need" (4 : 10-19). This throws light 
upon the meaning of Acts 18 : 3-6. Paul while 
alone at Corinth, wrought at his trade, and *' rea- 
soned in the synagogue every Sabbath. But 
when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedo- 
nia, Paul was constrained by the word" — according 
to the latest B. U. version *^was engrossed with 
the word"; in vernacular English, **gave his whole 
time to preaching" — and then he began to stir the 
city, being now as we may reasonably infer, supported 
either by his colleagues or on funds they brought. 
That is practical fellowship. Let me add, to com- 
plete the delightful picture, that in the great collec- 
tion gathered in Galatia, Macedonia, and Achaia, 
the Philippians were among those of whom it was 
written that ^^the abundance of their joy and their 
deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their 
liberality " (2 Cor. 8 : 2). Illustrious example of a 
mission church, probably the first planted in Eu- 
rope, giving often and liberally to send the gospel 
forward on its westward course, and as Antioch 
also had done (Acts 1 1 : 29) to relieve the necessi- 
ties of the brethren in the older East. The mid- 



28 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

night songs of prayer and praise that the prisoners 
heard swelling out from the deepest dungeon may- 
well have been inspired by what the missionaries 
foresaw in the near future. 

4. Minor Arguments, 

Genesis of Churches, — The mention of Philippi 
leads to the remark that historically as well as logi- 
cally it is usually the mission that gives rise to the 
church. The ascended Lord ^*gave some to be 
apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, 
and some pastors and teachers" (Eph. 4 : 11). 
Note the. order, apostles, prophets, evangelists, to 
gain converts ; pastors and teachers to train them. 
The church at Jerusalem was established under the 
preaching of men of Galilee. When its members 
were scattered, churches multiplied in Judea, Sama- 
ria, Syria, and thence the gospel spread into Asia 
Minor and Europe. We have brief notes of the 
labors of a few out of the hundreds and thousands 
similarly engaged. The earlier Baptist churches in 
this country were generally founded by pioneer 
preachers who rode on horseback from place to place 
and proclaimed the simple truth. Nearly all that 
have been organized, in the two Virginias at least, 
within the past seventy years have resulted from 
labors directed by State Mission Boards. So in 



SOME BASAI, PRINCIPI.es 29 

cities. Rarely a large church builds a second house 
on an eligible site and sends out a fully equipped 
colony ; much more commonly a few earnest peo- 
ple find an opening in a destitute quarter, start a 
Sunday-school, have occasional preaching, build a 
chapel, get help in evangelistic work, presently or- 
ganize a church, and after some years of partial de- 
pendence on outside help, become self-sustaining. 

PaitVs Letters. — All critical students of the Greek 
Testament have noticed Paul's nice discriminations 
in the use of language, and though it will not do to 
hang much weight of argument on so delicate a 
hook, it is at least worth observing that we find in- 
struction about church order and discipline, nothing 
about missions, in the two Epistles addressed '^ to 
the church of the Thessalonians," the two ''to the 
church of God at Corinth," and the circular letter 
''to the churches of Galatia"; while for the doc- 
trine of indebtedness to all mankind, the exposition 
of the universal need and universal efficacy of the 
gospel, and the grand discussions of the mystery 
then being made known among the Gentiles, we 
must turn to Epistles not directed to churches as 
such, but "to the saints" at Rome, Ephesus, Co- 
losse. Philippians, sweetest of them all, partakes 
somewhat of both characters, since it refers to mis- 
sion work and mentions the persons addressed as 



30 THRKK I.KCTURES ON MISSIONS 

members of a local church ; it is accordingly di- 
rected ^^ to the saints at Philippi, with the bishops 
and deacons " — the office-holders of the organiza- 
tion. The exception proves the rule. 

5. Some Inferences. 

Restatement. — Please do not understand me as 
undervaluing institutions which Jesus provided for 
and the Holy Spirit guided in forming and organiz- 
ing, or as proposing to relieve the churches of any 
work they are now doing. Rather would I increase 
it tenfold, and by arousing greater activity enable 
them to incorporate into church work much that 
now has to be imperfectly done for them by auxili- 
ary societies. The Association meeting annually, 
and the Convention, as our fathers formed it and as 
some of us would be glad to see it again, meeting 
once in two or three years, devise general plans for 
stable work. The churches meeting weekly give 
excellent occasions for gathering contributions and 
making many little offerings available by combina- 
tion. It is a sad mistake in any church or any pas- 
tor not to exercise the piety of the membership by 
frequent mention and regular collections for mis- 
sions. Every member in every church ought to 
give and forward through the appointed official, yet 
not for the honor of his church so much as for the 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES 3I 

glory of his Lord ; not to raise a stipulated quota, 
but as he hath prospered. Before men we stand as 
church-members, before God we come as individual 
souls. One must be united by personal faith to 
the Christ before he can be properly admitted to 
church-membership. The duty of telling the lost 
about Jesus and his love springs rather from this 
living union with the spiritual Head than from 
any formal connection with his body. '^ I am 
debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to 
the wise and to the foolish," not because of some- 
thing committed to the church of which I may be a 
member, but because of the gracious pardon, the 
immeasurable love, bestowed on me when in help- 
less penitence I looked to Jesus and was saved. 

Practical Bearings. — This doctrine of personal 
responsibility has more practical bearing than might 
at first sight appear. It cuts aw^ay the foundations 
from any plan of raising money for missions by^ 
fairs, suppers, lectures, entertainments of any sort, 
and seeks offerings that shall come warm from the 
heart and fly forth on the wings of fervent prayer. 
It calls for the worship of giving much oftener than 
once a year, as is a common custom. It squarely 
antagonizes the plan of raising a gross sum for all 
purposes and leaving a finance committee to appro- 
priate what may be needed for current support, and 



32 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

distribute the remnant among various benevolent 
operations. It would break up the unscriptural and 
worse than wearying talk we sometimes hear about 
what ''my church has given," when he who uses 
the words had little to do with the giving. Thou- 
sands of good people habitually hide behind what 
their church does. One says my penny is nothing 
in a contribution that will run up into the hundreds 
or thousands of dollars ; but you would not so say 
if you were conscious that Jesus is looking on, as 
when he sat over against the treasury. Another 
withholds his gift because he thinks some of his 
brethren are enthusiasts and will raise without his 
help the full quota for that church. Other thou- 
sands do nothing because the church or the pastor 
is not in full sympathy with the Board or dislikes 
some of its plans. 

In a word, the principle of individual responsi- 
bility, growing 'out of our separate relations to the 
Christ, lays the proper foundation for that system- 
atic beneficence which we ought constantly, through 
all pastors and churches to cultivate, general, fre- 
quent, and proportionate giving — by the poor out of 
their penury ; by the well-to-do out of their compe- 
tence ; by the rich out of their abundance. There 
are hundreds of men who can and ought to give from 
their own income enough to support one or two 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES 33 

missionaries. There are tens of thousands giving 
absolutely nothing, because they have never real- 
ized the weight of their responsibility, or rather 
have never appreciated the glorious privilege of be- 
coming personal co-workers with Christ in that for 
which he came to earth, and lived and died and 
rose again, to sit in majesty till every knee shall 
bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord to 
the glory of God the Father. 

III. WHO SHALL GO IN PERSON. 

Thus far w^e have seen the duty of evangelizing 
all people laid upon each and every Christian. Must 
all then go forth and give their time to preaching 
at home and abroad ? Churches in that case 
would be impossible, and out of place would be 
the apostolic injunctions for every man to abide 
in his calling (i Cor. 7 : 20), and to labor, working 
with his hands that he may have something to give 
(Eph. 4 : 28). Every Christian ought to adorn the 
doctrine by godly conduct and to speak a word in 
season. But we have many members in one body 
and all have different functions. Even among 
those who are called to office there are diversities 
of gifts from the same Spirit, diversities of minis- 
tration under the same Lord, and diversities of 
workings by the same God (i Con 12:4, 6). 



34 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

Unordained Workers. — The Moravian Brethren 
send out nearly one-tenth of their membership, not 
all as preachers, but in various avocations making a 
living in the land they wish to evangelize. And 
v^hy should not Christian people in locating home 
or business have regard to usefulness rather than 
solely to comfort or fortune ? One sensible, pro- 
gressive farmer uplifts the whole neighborhood. 
One happy Christian home is a blessing to the 
whole community. What a help it would be to 
city missions if a number of pious, intelligent peo- 
ple would not merely go down once a week as 
Sunday-school teachers, but move their families 
down, and from cheerful windows let the bright 
light of home shine out into alleys now lit only by 
the red glare of saloons. The atmosphere is bad, 
it reeks with blasphemy, there is constant danger 
of contagion and contamination ; but that is noth- 
ing to the life of our missionaries in bestial Africa, 
or malarial India, or crowded China. Or suppose a 
number of earnest young men entering upon pro- 
fessional or mercantile life would locate in Mexico 
or Brazil, in parts of Europe, or in heathen lands, 
not simply to make money, but to do good, what a 
help it would be to the lone missionaries whose 
hands they would uphold. The sacrifice would be 
nothing in comparison with what our great Exem- 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES 35 

plar endured when he came from the excellent 
glory into this dark world and bore the constant 
strain of contact with a faithless and perverse 
generation. 

I . Need of a Special Call. 

But it will be admitted that some ought to make 
it the business of their lives to preach the gospel to 
those who have it not, and that these are in some 
way specially called. Let us therefore turn again 
to the New Testament to search for an answer to 
the question, What constitutes a call to missionary 
life ? 

Peter, — Take first the Coryphaeus of the Twelve, 
the one of whom God made choice that by his 
mouth the Gentiles should hear the gospel and be- 
lieve (Acts 15:7). On the Jordan Andrew brought 
him to Jesus ; in the fishing boat the Master called 
him to become a fisher of men ; on the mountain he 
appointed him with eleven others to " be with him 
and that he might send them forth to preach '' 
(Mark 3 : 14). 

Some months later the Lord sent them on a 
mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 
This, observe, was not at all foreign mission w^ork. 
The charge was, ^^ Go not into any way of the 
Gentiles, nor enter any city of the Samaritans" 



36 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

(Matt. 10 : 5), and the directions given them were 
evidently special and temporary ; yet it may be in. 
structive to trace the steps in this call, as shown in 
Matt. 9 : 36 ff. — first, excitement of compassion for 
the distressed, the plenteous harvest ; second, prayer 
for more laborers ; third, the commission to go 
themselves. And so it is generally with the men 
who make good missionaries — they pity the multi- 
tudes of dying souls ; they pray for more preachers ; 
they say with Isaiah (6 : 8), '' Here am I, send me." 
The cardinal principle of the Students' Volunteer 
Movement, that every Christian student ought to 
consider where the need is greatest and volunteer 
to go there, unless providentially hindered, or as it 
has been expressed, that there is a universal call to 
go, requiring a special call to stay at home, — this 
principle is, I am satisfied, unsound. But it holds 
to this extent, that every one should lift up h^'s eyes 
and look upon the fields, earnestly pray, and then 
listen for the still, small voice of divine command, 
yet not set forth in advance of a special call. In 
the economy of our Lord he seems often to lay the 
burden of heathen souls upon our hearts in early 
life only that we may be prepared intelligently and 
zealously to uphold the cause among the home 
churches. David longed to build a house for God, 
and his desire, though not granted, prompted him 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES 37 

to gather the material with which Solomon erected 
the temple. 

To return to Peter, he was one of those to whom 
the Great Commission was given, and after he had 
preached with much success for about ten years to 
Jews, he was called from Joppa to Caesarea to offer 
salvation to Gentiles. The circumstances left no 
room to doubt. What has been said of him may 
be regarded as substantially true of all others whom 
Jesus sent forth during his personal ministry. 

Paul. — Turning to missionaries called after the 
ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we look 
first at him who was most abundant in labors. 
Saul of Tarsus, blinded and led into Damascus, was 
told by the devout Ananias that he was to be a wit- 
ness unto all men (Acts 22 : 15), being sent to the 
Gentiles, that they might turn from darkness unto 
light (26 : 18). On his return to Jerusalem after 
three years, and as he was praying in the temple, 
he saw the Master bidding him go far hence unto 
the Gentiles (22 : 21), and at the same time the 
Jews sought to kill him, and the brethren sent him 
to Tarsus (9 : 29, 30). He was there sought out 
.by Barnabas, brought to Antioch, there labored a 
whole year and w^as subsequently sent forth by the 
Holy Spirit (11 .-25, 26, and 13 : 4). After a tour 
of preaching he went up to Jerusalem to secure 



38 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

the approval of his doctrine by the apostles and 
elders and the mother church. He constantly 
claims that his commission was *^ not from men, nor 
through man, but through Jesus Christ and God 
the Father" (Gal. 1:1), yet we may clearly trace, 
and he did not at all deny, the co-operation of 
human agencies in making effectual the divine pur- 
pose. 

Other Laborers. — Barnabas was sent forth to An- 
tioch by the church at Jerusalem (Acts 1 1 : 22), 
and thence with Saul separated to a special work 
(13 : 2). On a part of their first journey they had 
John Mark as their attendant. When they parted 
Barnabas took Mark and Paul chose Silas, one of 
two prophets, that is, men who spoke for God, 
sent out to bear the decision in reference to the re- 
lation of Gentile converts to the Mosaic law. 

About the call of Timothy we know rather more. 
He had been trained by his mother and grand- 
mother, women of unfeigned faith (2 Tim. i : 5), 
was well reported of by the brethren at Lystra and 
Iconium, and Paul wished him to go along (Acts 
16 : 2, 3). He had also some special gift, ''by 
prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the 
presbytery" (i Tim. 4 : 14; 2 Tim. i : 6). 

Luke, the beloved physician, seems to have 
joined the party at Troas, indicating his presence 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES 39 

by the use of '' we " and '' us " in his narrative (Acts 
i6 : lo). By the same token he went no farther 
than Philippi, and there some years later rejoined 
Paul (20 : 5), and probably remained with him till 
his execution (2 Tim. 4:11). His stay at Philippi 
may have had something to do with the generous 
giving there practised. Of any special call to 
Apollos, or Sosthenes, or Titus, or the rest whose 
names are mentioned with approval, we find no 
record. It is fair to presume that their call was 
similar to those w^hich are more or less fully de- 
tailed, and involved an intimation of the divine will 
concerning them, and approval by the brethren, 
probably sitting in church conference. 

2. Constittients of a Call, 

It is commonly held that according to the gene- 
ral tenor of the Scriptures, a call to the ministry 
involves first, a strong conviction of duty or an 
earnest longing for the work — of this he who feels 
it must be sole judge ; second, approval by discreet 
brethren and formal endorsement by his church — 
they are better judges than the candidate of his 
general fitness ; tkirdy providential openings of the 
way into ministerial employment. At each of these 
steps there is liability to error, (i) Certain tem- 
peraments, too sanguine or morbidly conscientious, 



40 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

may mistake a passing fancy for a permanent im- 
pression ; others, phlegmatic or timid, may have to 
struggle long and hard against real convictions. 

(2) Some good brethren, especially brethren of the 
gentler sex, eager to speed the work of the Lord, 
encourage every young man who seems either will- 
ing or competent to speak in public ; others with a 
high ideal of qualifications for the ministry, are 
slow to give a kind word to any unfledged aspirant. 

(3) Openings are made by Providence through 
human agencies, and it is hard to distinguish clearly 
between the beckonings of the hand of God and 
the promptings of erring men. 

A call to missionary work is very similar, involv- 
ing (i) a strong impression of duty, one that will 
last through the despondency of acclimatization 
and bear up under apparent want of success ; (2) 
approved fitness, as testified both by his church and 
by experts — fitness in body to stand the change of 
physical life ; in mind, to master a new tongue and 
adapt one's self to new modes of thought ; in dis- 
position, to get on pleasantly with other people ; 
and in spirit, to illustrate the highest type of Chris- 
tianity ; and (3) an opportunity to go out with 
reasonable prospect of remaining long enough to 
lay solid foundations and build upon them. 

Let me close by begging every one of you whose 



SOME BASAL PRINCIPLES 4 1 

privilege it is to be students in this seminary, to 
give earnest heed to the Macedonian cry that comes 
from every quarter of the world, to consider your 
individual responsibility, and to listen for any per- 
sonal call that may come, whether as to Elijah on 
the mount of God, or as to Elisha patiently plow- 
ing in the meadow of Meholah. And when it 
seems to come, let me beseech you, dear brother, 
not to lose heart or temper if your impression of 
duty fails of cordial approval — sometimes your 
brethren can assign reasons, sometimes it may be 
best not to tell you why they disapprove. Believe 
me, their hearts bleed to say you nay, but it is bet- 
ter not to go unless you are eminently fitted for the 
work. Nor be discouraged if, when fully approved, 
you find the way obstructed ; if God puts up bar- 
riers, you only hurt yourself by attempting to pass ; 
if he is testing your faith and patience, you will be 
all the stronger when in due time you surmount the 
difficulties. Jesus met obstacles and changed his 
course, escaping from Nazareth, recrossing from 
Gadara, moving to and fro during most of his minis 
try ; it is not written of him that he ever *^ stead- 
fastly set his face to go " anywhere except to Jeru- 
salem to be crucified. Our lives will be best and 
noblest as they are patterned most closely on his 
life. A low ideal, easily attained, diffuses the super- 



42 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

ficial cheerfulness of conscious success ; a lofty and 
distant goal, too far-off to be reached by a spurt on 
the dusty race-course of life, though it may reflect 
some of the melancholy tints of conscious shortcom- 
ing, is a better guarantee of attaining at the last 
the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 
His example leads us to do the duty of each hour 
as it passes and watch patiently for the indications 
of providence as to what we shall do next. 



II 

METHOD OF MISSIONS 

T N the preceding lecture we saw something of the 
^ general duty, the personal responsibility, and 
the special call to give the gospel to the nations. 
We are now to ask how this work shall be most 
effectively done on the foreign fields ; and here 
again we turn to the sacred Scriptures to look for 
rules of procedure, and to search into the practice 
of apostles and other laborers in the first century. 
The example of men commissioned by our Lord, 
guided by his indwelling Spirit, and approved from 
God by signs and wonders, is a safe one for us to 
follow under similar circumstances. When our cir- 
cumstances are manifestly unlike theirs, we must 
attempt the difficult task of discriminating between 
what was essential — springing out of the inherent 
nature of man and of the gospel, the same yester- 
day and to-day and forever — and what was accidental 
and therefore changing with time and clime and 
civilization. To illustrate, no sane man would con- 
tend that because Paul traveled on foot and by sail- 
boat, missionaries now should not avail themselves 

43 



44 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

of railways and steamers. On the other hand 
when we find him passing by smaller towns and 
villages to the centers of influence, such as Pisi- 
dian Antioch, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Ephe- 
sus, and thence working out into the regions round 
about, we discern a practice of general application. 

I. PRELIMINARY POINTS. 

I. Specific Instructions. 

To the Twelve. — Let us look first for explicit di- 
rections as to method. We must rule out the letter, 
though of course not the spirit, of the charge given 
to the Twelve (Matt. lo : 5-42 ; Mark 6 : 7-13 ; 
Luke 9 : 1-6) and the similar injunctions to the 
Seventy (Luke 10 : 1-20). That these are not now 
in force we see for several reasons : The mission of 
the Twelve was to a small circuit in their native 
Galilee — preaching to Gentiles or even to Samar- 
itans was expressly forbidden. That of the Seventy 
was in like manner only to cities and places, probably 
in Judea and beyond Jordan, whither Jesus himself 
would soon come. Their message differed consid- 
erably from what it was to be afterward — until the 
atonement was finished on the cross they could 
only proclaim the kingdom as at hand ; afterward 
they were to preach the slain and risen Lord, and 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 45 

to baptize believers into the likeness of his death 
with rising again to newness of life. These in- 
structions were evidently adapted to a brief sojourn 
at any one place, and that only among their own 
people. The most characteristic of them were 
subsequently withdrawn and reversed, when the 
Master just before his crucifixion alluding to the 
former mission (Luke 22 : 35, 36), *' said unto 
them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take 
it, and likewise a v/allet ; and he that hath none, let 
him sell his cloke, and buy a sword" ; and accord- 
in2:lv we find no trace of the observance of the 
earlier instructions in the subsequent practice of the 
apostles, certainly none outside of Judea. 

The Commission, — There remain in the Gospels, 
so far as I have been able to find, only three pas- 
sages that contain any directions for mission work. 
These are first, in the discourse about the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem and the end of the world, a state- 
ment (Matt. 24 : 14; Mark 13 : 10) that *^ this gos 
pel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole 
world for a testimony unto all the nations ; and 
then shall the end come " that is, most probably, the 
end of the Jewish commonwealth. The other two 
are in the Commission (Matt. 28 : 19, 20) to make 
disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and 
teaching them, and (Luke 24 : 47) to preach repent- 



46 THREE IvECTURES ON MISSIONS 

ance and remission of sins unto all nations, begin- 
ning from Jerusalem. Mark i6 : 13 ff. is omitted 
as being of doubtful authenticity. These prescribe 
the method only so far as to require preaching, 
baptizing, teaching, and to indicate the point of de- 
parture for the world-wide work. 

In Acts I -1 2. — Turning to the Acts of the 
Apostles we find two tolerably distinct parts. 
Twelve chapters tell of meetings for prayer, ser- 
mons attended with power and demonstration of 
the Spirit, miracles of healing and one of summary 
punishment, arrests and deliverances, internal diffi- 
culties and how they were overcome, and so of the 
spread of the gospel among those who were already 
believers in the true God, including Samaritans, the 
worshiping Ethiopian, and the devout centurion, 
believers in God, but needing to be told about Je- 
sus and the way of salvation through him. In all 
this part of the book of Acts, except those por- 
tions which narrate the death of Stephen and the 
conversion of Saul, Simon Peter is the prominent 
figure. The method of work was by preaching to 
concourses in temple or synagogue or private 
house and by personal instruction of individual in- 
quirers ; the doctrine was authenticated by many 
signs and wonders, and its acceptance was at once 
followed by baptism ; the baptized believers were 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 47 

added together forming what presently came to be 
called Christian churches, and to be gradually or- 
ganized by appointing to official duties men full of 
faith and of the Holy Ghost, selected apparently 
by the congregation and approved by the apostles. 

For support they had all things common. One 
and another among them, in Jerusalem at least, 
whenever there was occasion, sold real or personal 
property, and distribution was made to each one as 
he had need (Acts 4 : 34). At other places gener- 
ous hospitality was the rule. This enthusiasm was 
admirable in the beginning, but it could not last, 
and w^e may reverently believe would not have been 
approved in other localities or at a later date. Je- 
rusalem was soon to be desolated, and even before 
that event the poor saints there came to need 
charity from abroad. 

hi Acts a7id Epistles, — The remaining chapters 
of Acts (13 to end) describe labors that were more 
distinctly missionary. In these Paul took part from 
the first and soon became foremost, and his letters 
should be read in connection with the narrative. 
Mainly therefore from Luke's history and Paul's 
Epistles, w^e learn the apostolic method of missions. 

2. Some Notable Differences. 
Some striking differences between the situation 



48 THREE I.ECTURES ON MISSIONS 

of the apostle and that of modern missionaries 
should be carefully noted and borne constantly in 
mind : 

Paul was by birth a Roman citizen, and, so far as 
we know, did not extend his labors beyond the con- 
fines of the empire. In fact this included nearly 
all the world then accessible to one born on the 
Mediterranean. While exposed to rough usage by 
mobs and to scourgings and imprisonments on false 
charges, he could everywhere claim, and upon occa- 
sion did claim, his rights as a citizen. Our mis- 
sionaries go far beyond the bounds of Western 
civilization, though to be sure not often beyond the 
reach of international law with the naval arma- 
ments provided for its enforcement. Not many 
have passed through hardships, sufferings, dangers, 
at all comparable to Paul's (2 Cor. 1 1 : 24-27), but 
the whole track of modern missions has been 
marked with martyr blood, and the pioneers have 
to endure more of loneliness, wider and longer sep- 
aration from friends, and greater change of intel- 
lectual atmosphere than was ever the apostle's lot. 

Paul was a Hebrew, and in the majority of places 
visited he found kinsmen after the flesh, to whom 
he first preached, and from whom he received hos- 
pitality. Kindness to the stranger was much es- 
teemed even among the heathen and practised still 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 49 

more among the dispersed Israelites, bound to each 
other, as they were, by so many ties of common 
descent from Abraham, common faith in the one 
true God, common traditions and hopes, and com- 
mon persecution on account of their separateness. 
No such condition meets missionaries to-day. Kin- 
dred and predisposed hearers they find very rarely, 
as to some extent among the Karens. Hospitality 
they cannot anywhere anticipate ; on the contrary 
fierce opposition. They must go as the Master 
said, and even more than in former days, wdth 
purse and haversack and sword, with every precau- 
tion for support and protection. 

Paul had no new language to learn. The '' gift 
of tongues" did not serve him for preaching; in 
fact he describes it (i Cor. 14 : 2-19) as rather or- 
namental than useful ; but with an education that 
gave him equal command of Hebrew and Greek, 
and perhaps some familiarity with Latin as used in 
the law courts, he could anywhere he went make 
himself understood. In most of the great mission 
fields of to-day the vernacular must be learned at 
large expenditure of time and labor ; in not a few it 
must be reduced to a written form, and considerably 
modified from former uses to adapt it to the ideas 
it is henceforth to embody 

Another noteworthy difference grows out of the 

D 



50 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

great change of modern from ancient civilization. 
Our work is, must be, slower in its progress than 
in apostolic days. To be sure the world moves 
faster now, but that was a time of great and wide- 
spread religious unrest. The world was prepared 
• as we hope it may be prepared in the twentieth 
century, but is not yet, for the rapid spread of 
Christianity. Paul stayed less than a year and a 
half at Corinth, not quite three years at Ephesus, 
at other points only a few months ; yet at almost 
every ptece he left a well-established church. Carey 
toiled long without seeing any fruit from his labors, 
and Judson spent six years in Burma before he was 
permitted to baptize a convert. The wonder-work- 
ing power of the Holy Spirit, the consciousness of 
direct inspiration, and the superior zeal of our early 
brethren had much to do with this ; but it is also 
attributable in no small degree to changed condi- 
tions in the heathen world, to the division of evan- 
gelical Christians into discordant sects, and to the 
unworthy character of many who bear the name of 
Christian and go along with our missionaries to get 
filthy lucre. From London, the chief center of 
missionary influence, have gone forth the edicts and 
the navies that force opium into China ; from Bos- 
ton, with similar prominence in America, are sent 
every year shiploads of rum into Africa. There is, 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 5I 

however, this compensation. The work now oeing 
done is likely to prove more enduring. The 
churches in Galatia, after receiving the infirm apos- 
tle as an angel of God, soon turned to a different 
gospel (Gal. 4 : 14 ; i : 6). The church at Cor- 
inth, planted by Paul and watered by Apollos, suf- 
fered grievous divisions and gross defections in less 
than five years. Of the seven churches of Asia 
six needed to be rebuked and four to be warned to 
repent, before the close of the first century. In 
our day of rapid changes and wonderful progress, 
the very implement that is so powerful in dissemi- 
nating new ideas, is also the great conservator. 
Christianity in the first century was taught almost 
exclusively by word of mouth, its doctrines were 
communicated through viewless air ; in our day 
while they are and must be orally presented, they 
are also committed to *' the immortal custody of the 
press." The willow on a river bank grows rapidly 
and soon decays ; the olive on a mountain slope 
grows slowly and lives for centuries. 

II. ON METHOD OF WORK. 

I . Selecting a Field, 

One of the first questions in mission work per- 
tains to the selection of a field. When Barnabas 



52 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

and Saul were sent forth, they went first to Cyprus, 
birthplace of the senior missionary, and proclaimed 
the word of God in synagogues of the Jews, from 
Salamis, chief city on the eastern end, to Paphos, 
the proconsul's residence in the western part (Acts 
13 : 5-12). Thence they sailed to one of the near- 
est ports in Asia Minor and pressed on to Pisidia, 
just across the mountains from the birthplace and 
recent residence of the junior, now foremost mis- 
sionary. The suggestion of personal reasons for 
going to these regions rather than elsewhere is 
confirmed by noting the course taken by each^ 
when they separated, Barnabas going to Cyprus, 
Paul through Syria and Cilicia '' confirming the 
churches" (15 : 41), and delivering the decision of 
the apostles and elders at Jerusalem (16 14), and 
thence crossing the mountains to visit in like man- 
ner the churches planted on the previous tour in 
Lycaonia and Pisidia. 

Journeying thus westward with Silas and Timo- 
thy he purposed ''to speak the word in Asia," that 
is in the rich and populous southwestern corner of 
Asia Minor, of which Ephesus was the metropolis, 
but being for the present forbidden by the Holy 
Spirit, he traversed the Phrygian and Galatian coun- 
try (Acts 16 : 6), was here detained by some in- 
firmity and founded the churches to which he after- 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 53 

ward wrote (Gal. i : 2 ; 4 : 13). Thence the party 
attempted to go northward into the fertile valleys 
of Bithynia but the Spirit again forbade. Not 
allowed to turn to the left hand nor to the right, 
they went straight forward and came to the coast 
at Troas. Here a vision in the night, an appeal 
for help, revealed God's purpose and they took ship 
for Macedonia. 

The story of their labors and suffering at Phil- 
ippi, the circumstances under which they left, the 
troubles in Thessalonica and Beroea, the brief stay 
at Athens, the removal to Corinth and labors there, 
Paul's passing call at Ephesus, his return to that 
great city, and residence there for nearly three 
years, during which *' all who dwelt in Asia heard 
the word of the Lord," his organization of the 
great collection and journey with it to Jerusalem, 
and the issue in landing him a prisoner at Rome — 
all this, graphically narrated in iA^cts 16 : 11 to 
end of the book, is familiar enough to be fully re- 
called upon mere mention. 

From this glance at Paul's movements we may 
learn that it is legitimate in the absence of higher 
reasons to be guided by personal predilections, or 
strong inclination, or prospects of access to men's 
minds and hearts, on account of any connection by 
birth, residence, or special sympathy. That changes 



54 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

of plan, though not to be made with the fickleness 
that led John Mark to turn back, are sometimes 
necessary as God may indicate by his Spirit moving 
on our hearts or by his providence blocking our in- 
tended way. When one turns from a hard to an 
easier field his motive may be suspected ; but not 
when the change is from one of comparative comfort 
to one of dangers and hardships. ^' The path of duty 
is the path of safety," even when it leads to cer- 
tain death. Shall patriot soldiers volunteer for the 
hazards of a '' forlorn hope " and shall a soldier of 
the cross hesitate } We learn, however, that it is 
permissible to flee in order to escape the insensate 
fury of an excited mob. Paul was driven out of 
Pisidian Antioch by the chief men of the city, fled 
from Iconium, left Philippi at the request of the 
praetors, escaped by night from Thessalonica and 
Beroea ; yet in most cases, perhaps in all, he went 
back again after the excitement had subsided, to 
confirm the souls of the disciples. So missionaries 
to-day must decide in every case as it arises, whether 
to bow like the slender reed until the storm passes 
over, then rise again, or to stand up against it in 
the strength of the oak. Sometim.es one course is 
wise, sometimes the other ; common sense must 
decide. 

To sum up in a single sentence, the selection of 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 55 

a field by one called to mission work, depends on a 
great variety of considerations, and can be properly 
made only after prayerful seeking for divine guid- 
ance, diligent study of the needs and openings, 
calm consideration of the dangers and difficulties, 
frank consultation with others of more experience, 
and even then must be held subject to revision as 
to details. A man rarely reaches fifty in the posi- 
tion to which at twenty-five he confidently looked 
forward." 

2. Work on the Field, 

Coming now to a more particular discussion of 
method in mission work we must re-read Acts 13- 
19, and compare the apostle's three reviews of his 
labors at three principal points: at Thessalonica (i 
Thess. 2 : 1-16), at Corinth (i Cor. i : 17-4 : 16), 
and at Ephesus (Acts 20 : 17-36). From the his- 
tory and from these retrospects we learn that his 
reliance was on '^the foolishness of preaching," the 
simple presentation of a crucified Christ, a scandal 
to sign-seeking Jews, and folly to philosophic Greeks, 
but to the called the power and the wisdom of God. 
This preaching was not in the persuasive words of 
a skilled rhetorician, but in demonstration of the 
Spirit, not as pleasing men, but God. Usually he 
found a synagogue or, as at Philippi, a place of 



56 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

prayer ; at Athens, he met the philosophers in a 
portico of the Agora and thence adjourned to the 
quiet summit of Areopagus ; at Corinth, he removed 
to the house of Titus Justus; at Ephesus, he se- 
cured the lecture room of Tyrannus, and at Rome, 
preached and taught for two years in his own hired 
lodgings. 

His themes and treatment were everywhere 
adapted to his auditors. We have only meagre 
outlines of half a dozen discourses : at Antioch 
(Acts 13 : 26-40), at Lystra (14 : 14-17), at Athens 
(17 : 22-31), to the elders from Ephesus (20 : 18- 
35), to the mob at Jerusalem (22 : 1-22), and be- 
fore Agrippa (26 : 2-27). No two are alike. All 
admirably suit the several occasions. These more 
public ministrations were supplemented by private 
instructions either to such as from time to time 
"clave unto him," or to a gathered family as in the 
jailor's residence, or from house to house in Ephe- 
sus, warning every one night and day with tears. 
His doctrine was attested by numerous miracles and 
covered the whole range of Christian duty, for he 
shunned not to declare all the counsel of God. He 
also found time to write letters, expository of doc- 
trines and declaratory of the duties growing out of 
them. These written sermons were in the line of 
conserving the truth, for which purpose also he or- 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 57 

ganized the baptized believers into churches, ap- 
pointing elders (Acts 14 : 23). 

This general course, except the working of mira- 
cles, ought to be and is still pursued. It is God's 
appointment for which no human invention can be 
substituted. Change of circumstances will make 
some modifications of detail, none in the general 
plan. Introductory exercises and a text of Scrip- 
ture are almost required in our country, but rather 
out of place in China. Indeed one could wish that 
more freedom were allowed here. We do not find in 
heathen countries houses already built like Jewish 
synagogues for the worship of the true God, nor 
audiences accustomed to listen, as were the cul- 
tured Greeks and Romans. The nearest parallels 
to apostolic conditions are found in papal fields, 
while in pagan countries the public preaching is 
mainly to attract attention and give occasion for 
talking privately with any who manifest interest. 
In one respect our wisest missionaries do not fol- 
low Paul's example : he baptized his converts 
straightway, but they take time and exercise great 
care lest the applicants should be, in their dense 
ignorance, self-deceived, or for the hope of gain 
practising downright hypocrisy. The preaching of 
the gospel, the instruction of inquirers, the point- 
ing of lost men to the living Saviour, the training 



58 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

of young Christians, remains the great, the trans- 
cendent, we may say the only work worthy of one 
whom God sends far hence unto the Gentiles. This 
preaching involves the whole of the truth as it is 
in Christ. ''Teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you" is an integral 
part of the Great Commission. 

Here lies a serious objection to all undenomina- 
tional or interdenominational missions, the Chris- 
tian Alliance, the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion work, the China Inland Mission, and other 
such enterprises. They have much that is admir- 
able, but cannot consistently with their professions 
be completely faithful to Christ. It is clear that 
believers ought to be baptized and organized into 
churches ; and here at once arise several questions. 
Shall membership be limited to baptized believers, 
or extended also to their infant children, or shall it 
be offered to any who seek it as a m.eans of grace, 
a way of salvation ? Shall the government be by a 
bishop, or >by a presbytery, or by the congregation ? 
Shall the ordinances, committed to the custody of 
the church, be administered according to the forms 
prescribed in the New Testament, or on the author- 
ity of ecclesiastical tradition ? The China Inland 
Mission allows the senior missionary of each sta- 
tion to '' organize the church according to his own 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 59 

conscientious convictions," and any successor takes 
it up ''on condition of carrying it on as it was com- 
menced." The founder of this remarkable work 
adds with evident satisfaction that '-though the 
mission embraces Episcopalians, Presbyterians, 
Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, and a few 
independent workers, all recognize each other as 
fellow-servants of the same Master, happily meet 
when occasion requires at the table of the Lord, 
and recognize each other's converts, however or by 
whomsoever admitted to the privileges of fellow- 
ship, provided they are walking consistently before 
God and their fellow-countrymen." But it seems 
to me that for one who reveres the truth in its 
round totality and has distinct convictions of duty, 
these are not matters of mere policy — they touch 
upon loyalty to the King. How an intelligent Bap- 
tist can join an interdenominational mission passes 
my comprehension. 

3. Some Accessories to Evangelization, 

As has been more than once already intimated, 
our circumstances and civilization, so different from 
those of the first century, require some departures 
from apostolic method, not at all in the essentials 
but in the incidentals of evangelization, and even 
here we must keep within the spirit of the law of 



6o three: i^kctures on missions 

Christ. As compared with our ancient brethren, 
we have lost in some respects, gained in others — 
lost in the spiritual power of individual men, gained 
in the material power developed by science and 
capital. It has been pithily said that money, the 
representative of all material forces, is spiritually 
naught, but when put on the right of a significant 
figure, a living Christian, it increases his value ten- 
fold. It is therefore a wise economy to expend 
money in making a man more effective. This falls 
within the scope of our Lord's admonition about 
using the mammon of unrighteousness (Luke i6 :g). 
Printing. — Several of the writings that make up 
our New Testament were evidently circular letters 
to be read to various congregations. These now 
would of course be printed and put into the hands 
of the brethren. The invention of cheap paper 
and of printing presses makes it our duty to multi- 
ply and to scatter copies of the word of God, good 
books, tracts, and religious newspapers, and this in 
heathen lands as well as in our own. This aid to 
evangelization is so well understood and its pro- 
priety so generally admitted, that we need not 
spend time in showing its harmony with Christian 
principle, though it was unknown to apostolic prac- 
tice. Observe for the sake of some other things 
to follow, that it is best, wherever possible, to make 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 6l 

the readers pay in whole or in part the cost of 
printing, not, however, the total cost of the plant 
needed — for that and for active capital the Bible 
and publication societies look to generous donors. 
The man who pays for Bible or tract or paper will 
probably read with interest ; but it is also clear that 
there are cases in which literature should be dis- 
tributed gratuitously. 

Chapels. — What ought to be done about places for 
preaching .^ Shall we do w^ithout, or rent, or build } 
In Roman Catholic countries vast sums have been 
expended in magnificent structures, adorned with 
paintings and statuary and all the appliances of an 
impressive ceremonial. In some pagan fields also 
are gaudy temples, beautifully situated and richly 
ornamented. Thither worshipers flock with gifts 
and offerings. It is but natural that missionaries 
should not wish to be completely overshadowed by 
the stately structures in which the priests of false 
creeds minister. But if we are to teach a simple, 
spiritual worship, expressive rather than impressive, 
ought we not to turn away from mediaeval styles of 
architecture, Gothic, Norman, Arabesque, as well 
as from the pantheons of Greece and Rome, and 
follow rather the severe simplicity of the ancient 
synagogue, a place to worship God and listen to the 
exposition of his truth ? Certainly we ought to do 



62 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

SO on mission fields. Shall these inexpensive 
chapels be provided and paid for with foreign 
money ? That depends on circumstances. If a 
place for preaching is really needed to render the 
missionary effective, it is economy to provide one. 
In some cities it is better to rent, in others it would 
prove cheaper to buy. 

An easy solution of this vexed question has been 
proposed, viz., to organize the converts into a 
church and encourage them to build their own 
house of worship as commodious as their numbers 
and means will allow. We accept the rule, as good 
at home as it is abroad, that the taste and ability 
of the congregation ought to determine the location 
and cost of their place of meeting ; but this makes 
no provision for those years of severest strain 
when the lone missionary is laboring to gather a 
congregation of hearers and to win converts to 
Christ. Moreover, it is not unfrequently the case 
in heathen lands, as well as sometimes in our own, 
that there is real need of a better house than the 
people can afford of themselves to build, and some 
judicious and timely help will greatly stimulate 
their growth into independent churches. 

Schools, — Teaching is a part of the commission. 
Among those given by the ascended Lord are teach- 
ers ; " for the perfecting of the saints, unto the 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 63 

work of ministering, unto the building up of the 
body of Christ" (Eph. 4 : 12), or as the Bible 
Union version has it, omitting a comma, '' unto the 
perfecting of the saints for the work of ministra- 
tion," that is, for the special instruction in Chris- 
tian doctrine and duty of those who give promise 
of useful service. One prime aim in mission work 
is to raise up a well-equipped native ministry. A 
speaker with complete command of the vernacular 
of his hearers rarely, conveys to them as much as 
seventy-five per cent, of the real force of his 
thoughts, much less when he has to use a foreign 
tongue. Missionaries arriving in China need an inter- 
preter for the simplest forms of speech. Long years 
of study and use do not enable them to dispense 
entirely with a teacher, some intelligent man who 
can apprehend an abstract idea, as expressed in our 
derivative terms, and approximate its expression in 
the compound and conglomerate words and tones of 
those concrete thinking people. 

It is idle to compute by arithmetic the ratio of 
ministers to population in the United States, and 
thence argue that we ought to send out forthwith 
so many tens of thousands of preachers to China 
and India and Africa, so as to put those countries 
on an equality with ours in opportunity to hear the 
gospel. No such thing is duty. It seems to be 



64 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

the divine plan for foreign missionaries to estab- 
lish centers of influence from which the truth 
shall spread through natives. When the teem- 
ing millions of the Celestial Empire are evangel- 
ized, it will be by Chinese. When the dense for- 
ests of Central Africa are lit up, it will be with 
thousands of fires kindled by her own sable sons. 
If, as Dr. Peloubet once said, ^*it takes a hundred 
years to make a good preacher" in a Christian 
land, how must it be in heathen or Mohammedan 
or Romish countries, where the mind is darkened 
by centuries of inherited superstition ? When Paul 
wished the son of a Gentile father to go with him, 
he chose one born of a pious mother and grand- 
mother, and by them carefully instructed ; so now 
the most effective of native preachers are of the 
second or third generation. 

The children of our Chinese brethren in some of 
our stations must grow up either without attending 
any Christian school or be educated under Pedo- 
baptist influence, and in either case with the results 
that would usually follow in this country. When 
Dr. Hartwell, after fifteen years among the Chinese 
in California, returned to his former field in Tung 
Chow, he wrote me that he found just about the 
same number of Baptists he had left there, most of 
them advanced in life, and their children largely 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 65 

Presbyterians. We conclude, therefore, that it is a 
legitimate and proper adaptation of Scripture prin- 
ciples to existing conditions to spend time, labor, 
and money in mission fields on school work for in- 
struction under denominational auspices of the 
children of our native brethren, and for the theo- 
logical and practical training of such converts as 
give promise of wider usefulness in spreading the 
gospel or edifying the church. The results at- 
tained by attempts to educate such men in this 
country have been far from satisfactory. Our civil- 
ization, with the inevitable lionizing they receive, 
puts them out of sympathy with their own people. 
We, ourselves, receive kindly a Frenchman, but de- 
spise one who spends several years in Paris and 
comes back with Frenchified ideas. As of books 
and of chapels, so of schools, the cost, as far and as 
rapidly as possible, should be thrown on the native 
Christians, and foreign help offered only to supple- 
ment their own efforts and enable them the sooner 
to reach self-support. 

But let us beware of imagining either that edu- 
cation must precede conversion, or that philan- 
thropy goes before piety. We see no valid ground 
for appropriating mission funds or requiring the ser- 
vice of missionaries for colleges, universities, tech- 
nical schools, in which are taught chiefly the Eng- 



66 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

lish language and literature and what goes under 
the name of ^^ Western Science." These with hos- 
pitals and asylums, orphanages and homes for the 
aged, are among the fruits that hang upon the lower 
limbs of the tree of Christian living. They will fol- 
low in due time and will ripen most perfectly if we 
aim rather to encourage fruitage on the topmost 
boughs, where grow love, joy, peace, and the other 
immediate fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5 : 22). 

Medical Work, — Paul's preaching was attested 
'^by signs and wonders and mighty works " (2 Cor. 
12 : 12), and these were usually miracles of healing. 
The supernatural was and still is essential to Chris- 
tianity ; without it the system as a whole would be 
unreasonable and incredible. We have not a com.- 
plete record of all that Jesus and his apostles said 
and did, but we have enough to furnish a sure basis 
for faith (John 20 : 30, 31). Observe a difference 
between the miracles of the Old Testament and 
those of the New. The signs that Moses was in- 
structed to show to Israel and to Pharaoh were 
chiefly, if not solely, to prove his divine mission; 
but in the beginning of the Christian era the com- 
mon expression is, he had compassion and healed ; 
that is to say, our Lord's mighty v/orks vvcre de- 
signed to relieve suffering, and to gain attention for 
the teaching that went with them ; and notice that 



MKTHOD OF MISSIONS 67 

the teaching was essential, the miracles incidental 
and subsidiary. If such healings were wrought in 
our day, they would not have in popular estimation 
the evidential value that attached to them in the 
first century. The rapid advance of science and 
the wide prevalence of the scientific spirit has made 
us skeptical ; but it has also given us other means 
of ministering to the bodily needs, and gaining the 
earnest attention of people. 

The prediction of an eclipse in Siam,^ the healing 
of disease by medicines in China, civil engineering 
in Telugu-land, the mere writing of a letter in 
Africa — putting marks on paper so that another at a 
distance can get the idea — all these have been used 
to attract attention and to open men's minds and 
hearts to the gospel. 

Pre-eminent, however, in this line, is medical sci- 
ence, and every mission to interior Asia or Africa 
ought to have one or more men, perhaps better 

^ In 1867 Rev. Mr. McGilvary (Presbyterian missionary to Siam) 
went among the Laos tribes. In conversation with Nan Inta, a 
learned Buddhist, he mentioned casually the remarkable eclipse that 
was to occur August 18, 1868, and the several parties that were 
coming out from Europe to observe it. To the great astonishment of 
Nan Inta, he went on to foretell the phenomena as set forth in the 
almanac. The exact correspondence of the facts with the prediction 
carried conviction of the falsity of Buddhism, led this intelligent man 
as first-fruits to Christ, and began a good work that still eoes on. 



68 THREE I.ECTURES ON MISSIONS 

women, expert in the science and skilled in the art 
of ministering to bodily ailments. They are needed 
to take care of one another and to win access to 
the heathen, who like the scribes at Capernaum 
cannot see the forgiveness of sins, but can see a 
sick man take up his bed and walk, and be thus led 
to glorify God. Only let it be clearly and con- 
stantly kept in mind that medical work is strictly 
subsidiary. The heathen are dying with the lep- 
rosy of sin. Relieving their bodily diseases is 
merely counteracting certain symptoms ; it does 
not reach the cause of the trouble. If at any time 
or place the hospital should overshadow the church, 
the practitioner become more than the preacher, the 
results would be evil. Let medical work on mission 
fields be encouraged only so far as it will lead the 
suffering to the great Physician. And here again 
make it as fast as possible self-supporting. 

4. Stcpport on the Field. 

Paul's support during his evangelistic tours has 
been already touched upon in what was said of the 
hospitality he met with and the contributions of the 
brethren at Philippi. Very little money was needed 
— conveyance, food, clothing, all the necessaries of 
life, in that primitive age, were far cheaper than 
now. He claimed, but did not exercise, the right 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 69 

to take with him a wife and to reap pecuniary pay 
in return for his spiritual sowing, according to the 
Lord's appointment that they who proclaim the 
gospel should live of the gospel (i Cor. 9 : 4-18). 
Notice that this divine ordinance is in its context 
applicable to missionaries rather than to pastors. 
Not a few pastors, called to the care of weak 
churches, ought to make the principal part of their 
support by some secular business ; in fact the apos- 
tle's practice shows that missionaries also ought 
sometimes to support themselves, as he did at 
Thessalonica (2 Thess. 3 : 8, 9), at Corinth (Acts 
18 13), and at Ephesus (Acts 20 : 34). 

As a practical rule, generally followed and main- 
tained by good reasons, the apostle refused to ac- 
cept from the people to whom he was at the time 
preaching any pay beyond the usual hospitality. If 
they chose after he left to send something for his 
maintenance elsewhere, it was thankfully received 
(2 Cor. II : 6-10; 12 : 13-17). This he spoke of 
as a wrong to the comparatively rich church at 
Corinth ; but it was helpful to his work, and saved 
him from any imputation of unworthy motives. 
Very frequently his own hands ministered to his 
wants and so he wrote to the saints at Philippi 
(Phil. 4:11) that he had learned, in whatsoever 
state he was to be content — or to translate more 



70 THRKK LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

exactly the Greek ahrdpxrjQ, independent, self-reli- 
ant. He knew how to abound and give his whole 
strength to his ministry when brethren sent him 
money, and when they did not, he knew how to 
meet his own wants and preach as much as he 
could. 

How strangely words change their application. 
" Self-support*" in missionary parlance used to refer 
to those who like Paul supported themselves while 
preaching to others. Such was Carey's plan when 
he went out to India. But since the publication of 
Dr. Carpenter's '^ Self-support in Bassein " (Boston, 
1883), the phrase has come to be applied to con- 
verts rather than to preachers, and is interpreted 
by its advocates as a synonym for opposition to 
what they are pleased to call the subsidizing of na- 
tives by the use of foreign money. Self-support in 
the Pauline sense is quite a different thing. 

Woman's work for woman both complicates and 
helps to solve the question of supporting mission- 
aries. Among those to whom Paul went women oc- 
cupied a higher relative position than she does to- 
day in heathen and Mohammedan lands. Among 
Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, monogamy was the 
rule ; and where it prevails a wife stands beside her 
husband with heart near his, and head generally 
leaning on his shoulder. Polygamy means degrada- 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 7I 

tion of the weaker vessel into a slave, who cannot 
be trusted, but must be constantly guarded. In 
papal countries with a celibate priesthood, numer- 
ous nunneries, auricular confession and all the 
power that it carries, the condition of woman is not- 
much freer. So it comes about that men have no 
access to harems, zenanas, and heathen homes. 
Faithful women are needed to reach and impress 
the inmates of these. Our young missionaries do 
wisely in taking up the word of Barak to some 
youthful Deborah, '' If thou wilt go with me, then 
I will go " (Judg. 4 : 8). They thus have larger and 
more imperative needs. Then again unmarried 
women are in many places among the most effective 
of modern missionaries. Providence wisely arranges 
that with the need shall come the supply. If 
"woman's work" has added to the expense of mis- 
sions it has much m^ore added to the resources. 
There are still in existence in tidewater Virginia 
women's missionary societies organized by Luther 
Rice when this century was in its teens, while in 
later years the general organization of the Woman's 
Missionary Union has not only raised large and 
yearly increasing sums, but has greatly stimulated 
the zeal of the brethren, and is laying among the 
children a foundation for more systematic and lib- 
eral giving in the future. This matter of raising 



72 THREE I.ECTURES ON MISSIONS 

funds for missions will come before us in another 
lecture. 

5. Co-operation, 

Paul bore the burdens and discharged many of 
the duties of a bishop though he did not claim the 
prerogatives or exercise the powers now allowed to 
prelates. On him devolved '* daily anxiety for all 
the churches " (2 Cor. 1 1 : 28). In his Epistles he 
speaks sometimes by way of advice, more frequently 
with authority as an inspired apostle. He chose 
Silas, called Timothy, sent Tychicus to Colosse 
(4 : 8), left Titus in Crete (i : 5) to set in order 
what was wanting there, asked Timothy to remain 
at Ephesus (i Tim. i : 3), afterward sent Tychicus 
there and begged his own son in the faith to join 
him at Rome (2 Tim. 4:11, 12). In a general 
way he supervised and directed the labors of a good 
many younger or less experienced men, yet without 
any claim of authority over them. To Philemon 
(vs. 8, 9) he writes that though having boldness in 
Christ to enjoin, he rather beseeches as an aged 
man and a prisoner. He begged Apollos to go to 
Corinth with the brethren who bore the first Epistle 
(i Cor. 16 : 12), but accepted gracefully his declina- 
ture to go at that time. 

Need of Control. — Missionaries are men. Under 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 73 

the influence of their lonely life, in great cities 
teeming with unsympathetic human beings, cut off 
from social conversation and turned in upon them- 
selves, their individualism is apt to develop into 
more or less of eccentricity. They need control to 
counteract the centrifugal effects of some pet idea 
tending toward a tangent. Soldiers thrown far to 
the front and deployed as skirmishers, must take 
thought each for himself, and on that account all 
the more need a commandant to keep them within 
supporting distance of each other and in full co- 
operation. The successful missions have generally 
been those in which there was some one whom all 
the rest respected for his piety and discretion. 
The China Inland Mission owes much to the mag- 
netism of Hudson Taylor, even more to the rigor- 
ous rule of the Advisory Committee at Shanghai 
and the several district superintendents. The or- 
ganization is very similar to that of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. The name of Judson is indis- 
solubly linked with the success of the Karen mis- 
sion, that of Clough with the pentecost among the 
Telugus, and that of Graves with our work at Can- 
ton ; not that these brethren ever lorded it over 
God's heritage, but because their strong character 
and common sense have enabled them to infuse 
much of their spirit into their fellow-workers. The 



74 THRKE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

unity of doctrine and harmonious co-operation 
among Baptists, though we have no formulated 
standards, no courts of appeal, has often attracted 
attention. It is no doubt due in part to our hold 
upon the idea that the New Testament, strictly in- 
terpreted, is the one standard, but also in no small 
degree to the absence of any general ecclesiastical 
government. This freedom makes us all esteem 
more highly and follow more closely our approved 
leaders. As the white plume of Henry of Navarre, 
in the battle of Ivry, was a better guide than the 
oriflamme of France, so our honored brethren, lead- 
ing in the battles against sin and error, have all 
the more of real influence because they claim no 
ecclesiastical authority. 

In conclusion let us frankly admit that the inner 
history of modern missions reveals some errors 
made in good conscience for want of infallible fore- 
sight. It cannot be denied that there has been ex- 
cessive use of money in unnecessary school work, 
in expensive hospitals, in great printing houses, and 
in the employment of unworthy native assistants. 
It is human to err, inhuman to assail brethren 
fiercely because of their errors. The mastakes have 
been made more frequently by those who have access 
to a full treasury ; paucity of funds has often proved 
salutary for Boards as well as for individuals. But 



METHOD OF MISSIONS 75 

upon the whole we may confidently claim that the 
commonly approved missionary methods of to-day 
accord in principle with those of the first century, 
and differ in practice only as seems to be required 
by changed conditions. We therefore have a right 
in praying for our brethren at the front, for their 
preaching in neat chapels, their distribution of 
printed matter, their schools, their medical minis- 
trations, to plead the Master's promises, and to in- 
voke his blessing, as upon his own appointed work. 



Ill 

A WIDER VIEW 

A TRAVELER westward on the Chesapeake and 
-^^ Ohio Railway from Hampton Roads ascends 
an easy grade to the head of tidewater, rises more 
rapidly to Piedmont, then with puffing engine climbs 
obliquely up the Blue Ridge, gaining a wider hori- 
zon at every turn around a projecting spur. Just 
above Afton he catches on the left one of the pret- 
tiest single views in the mountains of Virginia. As 
he is feasting on the scene the train plunges into a 
long, dark tunnel, and presently comes out upon the 
famous Shenandoah Valley, dressed for early sum- 
mer in freshest robes of living green, that fall in 
graceful curves above the undulating surface. If, 
however, at Afton we leave the rushing train and 
wend our way to the top of the mountain, we may 
there pause awhile to look backward and forward. 
Below us is the beautiful basin, above referred to, 
in which the Rockfish River takes its rise; on 
either side and stretching eastward are the rough 
foothills, with vineyards and orchards and reddish 
brown fields ; on the horizon is a low range with 
76 



A WIDER VIEW 77 

wavy sky-line, like the fancied folds of a monster 
serpent, over which the morning sun comes up. To 
the west as far as eye can reach are fields and for- 
ests, meadows and hills, limpid streams, villages 
and towns, bathed in the effulgence of noonday, 
and in the dim distance the jagged outline of the 
Alleghanies, behind which the evening sun will 
have a glorious setting in preparation for a new 
and yet more glorious day. 

At such a point in the progress of missions we 
seem to stand. Behind are a hundred years in 
which we sang *^ The morning light is breaking." 
The way has been rough and toilsome, but fruitful 
at the same time ; while here or there, as for ex- 
ample in Telugu land, is an enchanting scene. Be- 
fore are the triumphs and the harvests of noontide. 
In the distance we catch some glimpses of the 
Beulah Land in which the present dispensation, 
the sixth day in the scheme of regeneration, shall 
fade before the glories of the seventh, ''the rest 
that remaineth to the people of God." 

It used to be a frequent fear that these earthly 
eyes would not look upon the coming of the next 
century, but our Lord was born not later than b. c. 
5, and our almanacs are full four years behind the 
calendar of heaven ; so I sometimes indulge the 
pleasing fancy that we whose hairs are silvered and 



78 THREE I.ECTURES ON MISSIONS 

shoulders bowed under the heat and burden of these 
closing years of the nineteenth century, have as 
good a chance as the youngest among us to see 
the real morning of the twentieth. We approach it 
with greater interest in remembering that it is also 
the second century of modern missions. 

- Neither retrospect nor prospect is altogether 
bright. Mistakes and shortcomings have marred 
the past and will no doubt mar the future ; for the 
glorious gospel is committed to earthen vessels. 
But if we can trace in history the guiding hand, 
the overruling providence, the superabounding 
grace of our God, helping his servants hitherto, we 
may set up an Ebenezer, and go forward more 
bravely. Whether one sees the darker or the 
brighter side of realities, depends in part upon his 
bodily health, more on the direction in which he 
habitually looks. When I observe how poorly 
Christians live, how potent sin is in the world, how 
often the wrong overrides the right, still more, 
when in the perfect mirror of revealed and revealing 
truth, I peer into the depths of my own poor heart, 
the aspect is sadly depressing, my feet are almost 
gone, my steps well-nigh slip ; but when with 
pious Asaph I can enter into the sanctuary, and 
look up to Him that sitteth on the throne, '' all is 
as bright as are the promises of God." 



A WIDER VIEW 79 

I. RESULTS ALREADY ATTAINED. 

Progress in any great movement is rarely observ.^ 
able by the eye. The waves roll up on the beach 
and retire to the deep ; only by examining at con- 
siderable intervals can we detect the rise of the 
tide. Especially is this true of the effects of vital 
force. The mustard seed becomes a tree, but no 
man can see it grow. '^ Where spiritual forces are 
in the field,", said a lecturer at Princeton two years 
ago, ^ '^ success is not usually a matter of mathemati- 
cal demonstration. It cannot be expressed in exact 
terms or collected into statistical tables. There is 
an element of intangibility about it that places it 
beyond the reach of material tests. A true esti- 
mate of missionary success must therefore take 
cognizance of many things besides visible results. 
God does not work with any view to spectacular 
effect. A generation without a convert has been 
show^n by experience to be no sufficient cause for 
discouragement." Let us in this spirit honestly 
strive to form a sober judgment, neither rose- 
colored nor tinted in blue, as we look back a 
hundred years and compare the situations then 
and now. 

^ "Foreign IMissions After a Century," a course of lectures by 
James S. Dennis, d. d., of the Presbyterian Mission at Beirut. 



8o THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

I . Sentiment of Christendom, 

A century ago the mass of evangelical Christians 
were wrapped in self-satisfied slumbers, knowing 
little and caring less for the millions of dying 
heathen, oblivious of their Captain's marching 
orders. A few noble spirits, such as the Moravian 
Brethren in the West Indies, Greenland, and Africa, 
Ziegenbalg and Schwartz in East India, Elliott and 
Brainard among the American aborigines, had gone 
forth into the dense darkness. The dawn of a new 
day was, however, glimmering upon the eastern 
horizon. William Carey sounded a ringing reveille 
on the key-notes ^^ expect" and *^ attempt." He 
sailed for India, in 1793, under appointment of the 
Baptist Missionary Society, organized the year 
before. The London Missionary Society was 
formed in 1795, the Scottish in 1796, one for the 
Netherlands in 1797, one by the Church of Eng- 
land in 1799, and many others soon after. In this 
country the American Board of Commissioners was 
established in 18 10, and in 181 3 began our Baptist 
work represented by the Missionary Union and 
(since 1845) ^^^o by the Southern Baptist Conven- 
tion. There are now nearly three hundred general 
organizations for mission work, with an aggregate 
income for the year last reported, of thirteen and a 



A WIDER VIEW 8l 

half million dollars, of which one and a half mil- 
lions were collected on the mission fields. ^ 

Our fathers were confronted with opposition by 
the worldly wise, ridicule by unbelievers, indiffer- 
ence on the part of pious people, and outspoken 
skepticism as to the possibility of salvation for 
Asiatics or Africans. Governmental opposition has 
practically ceased, nay, so rapidly is *' the kingdom 
{i. c, the sovereignty, the real rule) of the world 
becoming the kingdom of our Lord " (Rev. 1 1 : i 5), 
that missionaries 'of the Cross are protected by 
international treaties and welcomed by heathen 
rulers. Sarcasm at their folly has given place to 
unstinted praise of their heroism and their services. 
Much indifference and a little skepticism still 
linger, though generally hiding their diminished 
heads behind other more plausible excuses ; for we 
are beginning to entertain higher and truer concep- 
tions of the Christ and his atonement, to realize 
that in view of the immeasurable distance of all 
from God, there is between the highest and the 
lowest races of men no difference, the same Lord 
of all being rich unto all that call upon him. 



1 These funds supported of foreign missionaries five thousand 
(5,040) men, seven thousand (6,993) women, with nearly fifty thou- 
sand native helpers (4,147 ordained, and 45,419 unordained). 

F 



82 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

2. Converts. 

It is impossible to ascertain definitely the number 
who within a hundred years have turned from the 
darkness of paganism, Islam, and Romanism, to the 
light of evangelical Christianity. The latest statistics 
(February number of ^^ Missionary Review," 1895) 
foot up over a million (1,030,766) communicants in 
foreign mission churches. Something like a quarter 
of a million more have died in the faith, many seal- 
ing their loyalty in their blood. Nearly as many 
more on fields formerly missionary are now organ- 
ized independently and are themselves sending the 
gospel to others. Add secret believers and Chris- 
tians' little children and other relatives who, though 
not church-members, are in some sort adherents, 
and the total will be largely over five millions. 

The point has been made that in spite of the 
efforts and the expenditures of a hundred years the 
number of heathen is larger to-day than it was when 
work among them began. Even so, the natural in- 
crease has been largely over five millions ; but ob- 
serve that the ratio of Christians to heathen has 
gained greatly and is still gaining in geometrical pro- 
gression. In comparison with the figures of 1792, 
pagans and semi-pagans have about doubled, Prot- 
estants have more than trebled. But, unquestion- 



A WIDER VIEW 83 

ably, Carey ^ was too low in his estimates of distant 
and hardly known lands ; for example, he put the 
whole of Africa with its islands at sixty- one millions, 
the Chinese Empire at one hundred millions. It 
would be more nearly correct to say that in a hun- 
dred years pagans have increased perhaps fifty per 
cent., semi-pagans about seventy- five percent., evan- 
gelical Christians over two hundred and fifty per 
cent. The population of the globe is now estimated 
in round numbers at fifteen hundred millions, of 
whom one hundred and fifty millions, one-tenth of 
the whole, are set down as nominally evangelical, 
looking for salvation through faith in Christ ; five 
hundred millions, one third of the whole (Roman- 
ists, Grecists, Mohammedans, and Jews), know some- 
thing of the true God and have heard the name of 
Jesus, but deny his power ; eight hundred and fifty 
millions, more than half of the whole, are multi- 
plying and living and dying without God and Vvdth- 
out hope. A malarial swamp fed by myriad springs 
will rise and spread until evaporation counter- 
balances inflow, but let engineering sla'H cut drains 

^ Dr. Carey, with the meagre information then accessible, com- 
puted (" Inquiry," etc., pp. 38-62) 420,000,000 in pagan darkness, 
267,000,000 in twilight (130,000,000 followers of Mahomet, 100,000,- 
000 Catholics, 30,000,000 Greek and Armenian churches, 7,000,000 
Jews) and 44,000,000 Protestants — total, 731,000,000 



84 THREE I.ECTURES ON MISSIONS 

which will be deepened and widened by the current 
through them, and in course of time the mephitic 
marsh will be converted into a blooming paradise. 
The contest between paganism and Christianity is 
a race between increase by natural generation, 
limited by war and pestilence and overcrowding, 
and increase by the new birth under the limitless re- 
sources of the Holy Spirit. Let us also remember 
that our arithmetic does not hold in the kingdom of 
Him with whom one day is as a thousand years, and 
a thousand years as one day; Him who reduced 
Gideon's thirty and two thousand to three hand- 
fuls of a hundred men each, before he would let 
them smite the host that '' lay along in the valley 
like locusts for multitude" ; Him who makes '^one 
chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to 
flight." 

3. Providence. 

With the work of converting grace put also the 
co-operation of over-ruling Providence. This opens 
a vast theme. We can allude to only two among 
a score of inviting lines of thought. Seams of 
coal and veins of iron ore have lain in the earth 
ever since man dwelt on its surface. They have 
been known and somewhat used for ages. Only 
within this century have they been developed. In 



A WIDER VlKvV 85 

prehistoric lore ''the iron age" designates a time 
marked by cruelty and bloody wars with swords 
and spears. The iron age of to-day is character- 
ized by machinery and vehicles and roads and 
bridges for the production, manufacture, and distri- 
bution of what will minister to human well-being. 
The beating of swords into plowshares and spears 
into pruning hooks has made wonderful progress. 
What does this mean.^ On one of the floating 
palaces that walk the waters of the Mississippi, we 
see on the deck piles of merchandise, the hurrying 
crew, the busy stokers, the eager passengers, but 
high up in the wheelhouse is the guiding hand. So 
all history shows the guidance of an unseen Person. 
Men are working for gain, God is using them to 
carry out his purposes. When Joseph was in the 
pit, there came a train of Midianites. His breth- 
ren sold him for twenty pieces of silver, and the 
merchants no doubt doubled their money when 
they transferred the handsome Hebrew slave to 
Potiphar ; God was preparing Zephnath-Paaneah, a 
preserver of life. 

But iron is also made into cannons and warships, 
engines of destruction. And these God is using 
to batter dowm prejudices and unlock closed doors. 
The opium war with China was utterly iniquitous ; 
yet it opened the empire. It is too early to see 



86 THRKK I.KCTURES ON MISSIONS 

the full results of the war between Japan and 
Chma, but we can hardly doubt that it will break 
up many prejudices and bring the Celestial Empire 
to a lower estimate of its antique civilization, and 
thus put it upon a higher plane in the sisterhood 
of nations. It will probably lead to some develop- 
m^ent of China's untold mineral resources, binding 
the vast territory together by steel rails, revolution- 
izing old ways, opening those acute minds to new 
ideas. Now is the crisis. If the opportunity is 
allowed to slip, the millions of people will probably 
swing away from their hereditary reverence, indus- 
try, and economy, into the opposite extremes of 
self-complacency and reckless living, — a purely ma- 
terialistic civilization. But if Christian people are 
wise and vigorous, the greatest nation on the earth 
may be born in a day. Other empires have risen 
and fallen ; this axid one other race have maintained 
a separate existence and a continuous history since 
the days of Abraham. For some great purpose 
these two have been kept, each in its distinctness. 
The Jews are scattered to be gathered again when 
the fullness of the Gentiles is come in (Rom. 1 1 125). 
*^The fullness of the Gentiles" probably meant 
on Paul's lips the hordes of Europe ; for us it 
must include the teeming millions of Eastern Asia. 
Shall China then become a Christian people ? We 



A WIDER VIEW 87 

may not interpret, but we can see enough to ex- 
claim with the apostle, '' O the depth of the riches 
both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God ! 
how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways 
past tracing out! " 

4. jBz/?/e Ciixiclation. 

From the beginning of modern missions the 
translation and printing of Bibles has been promi- 
nent. The British and Foreign Bible Society, or- 
ganized in 1804, was one of the first-fruits of the 
movement and has been its most efficient ally. 
Carey lived to see over two hundred thousand 
copies, in forty dialects, issued from his press at 
Serampore. Up to 1890 there had been issued by 
different Bible societies and printing houses sixty 
versions of the whole Bible, eighty others of the 
whole New Testament, and about one hundred and 
sixty more of considerable portions of Old and New, 
making with the twenty in existence a hundred 
years ago, over three hundred versions, partial or 
complete, of the word of God, not only prepared 
but printed and distributed by the thousand. This 
work still goes on with ever-increasing rapidity, and 
is simply inestimable in its silent power. It is si- 
lently undermining the foundations of error, and 
scattering the leaven of truth. 



88 THREE I.ECTURES ON MISSIONS 

5. Preparatio7i of Fields, 

The labors of a hundred years have wrought 
changes quite as great abroad as at home. The 
earher missionaries were naturally regarded as 
either political spies or mercenary prospectors. 
What other motive known to heathenism could in- 
duce them to go so tar from home and endure such 
hardships ? But even people ignorant of the prin- 
ciples of Christianity and of the unselfish love it in- 
spires, have been compelled to respect unswerving 
truth and unfailing kindliness, particularly in times 
of flood or famine or pestilence. It has been found 
again and again that relief funds distributed by 
civil rulers are sadly diminished in transmission, 
while money disbursed by these ministers of the 
Lord Jesus goes unimpaired, nay even increased, in 
amount to the needy for whom it was designed. 
Heathen governments, with few exceptions, are 
friendly to real Christian work, and are finding out 
that it makes better and more loyal citizens. The 
Turk, with his pure monotheism and simple worship 
is bitterly hostile to the ostentatious ritual and the 
adoration of images practised by his neighbors of 
the Greek and Latin churches ; ^ against evangelical 

1 Recent massacres in Armenia, while instigated by politics and 
prosecuted for plunder, spring from Moslem hatred of idolatry. 



A WIDER VIEW 89 

Christianity he has far less prejudice. Romanism 
is becoming for worldly policy, if for no better rea- 
son, much more tolerant ; and the effort to trans- 
plant it more largely into America, while it threatens 
some elements of our freedom, must inevitably still 
further loosen the fetters of superstition and priest- 
craft. Thus the fields everywhere are white to the 
harvest. Other men have labored and we have en- 
tered into their labors. 

II. SOME NOTICEABLE DEFECTS. 

As already remarked, success in the past has 
been hindered by mistakes. It would be alike un- 
seemly and unprofitable to allude to errors of judg- 
ment or shortcomings on the part of individuals. 
They who engage in this great work are readiest of 
all men to confess their frailties. Nor shall I at- 
tempt to catalogue all the mistakes made by socie- 
ties or by the officials representing them — not even 
all that have come within the narrow scope of my 
own observation. My aim is rather to call atten- 
tion to a few that seem remediable, and to speak of 
them only so far as will emphasize the proposed 
remedy. 

I. Indifference, 
What has been and still is more than anything 



go l^HREK LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

else depressing mission work is the appalling fact 
that vast numbers of intelligent, liberal, pious peo- 
ple neither know the situation, nor contribute to 
send the gospel, nor pray for the few who give their 
lives to this work. What proportion of our people 
read missionary news ? Hardly one in a hundred. 
What proportion give of their means ? It is esti- 
mated that over half of Southern Baptist churches 
raise practically nothing for missions, and that in 
those churches which take collections nine-tenths of 
the amount comes from one-tenth of the members. 
How many Christians in their secret devotions, 
how many heads of households in family worship, 
how many pastors leading their congregations in 
prayer, remember the Boards in their perplexities, 
the secretaries under their burdens, the mission- 
aries in their loneliness, the converts in their temp- 
tations, the heathen in their darkness ? 

What can be done to correct this evil ? Not 
much in a day, or a month, or a year ; not much 
by adopting resolutions ; something by unwearying 
and tactful labor. Many present will be pastors, 
charged to feed the flock of God, which is not to 
put carefully masticated and daintily served food 
into open mouths, but to lead them out into the 
green pastures of Christian activity and let them 
lie down only beside the quiet waters of the divine 



A WIDER VIEW 91 

purposes. You will preach the great doctrines of 
sovereign grace, not often perhaps in special ser- 
mons, but as a thread of gold running through the 
woof of every discourse. Even so preach missions, 
rarely in set discourses, but constantly, as the great 
duty laid upon disciples. Draw illustrations from 
incidents recorded in missionary literature. Have 
a vivid idea of the work. Organize your church so 
as to show that you expect every member to give 
regularly. With the sword of the Spirit cut up the 
roots of selfishness and pride. Lift yourself and 
your congregation to higher conceptions and wider 
views. For enduring results neither genius nor elo- 
quence can at all compare with steady work for God 
and with God. 

Second only to that of the pastorate is the influ- 
ence of devoted women. They rule in social circles 
and direct conversation. They appreciate the worth 
of littles, gather them faithfully, and transmit them 
promptly. Shall we have women's societies in 
our churches ? In some few, with all the members 
knit together, all the functions in working order, 
life-blood circulating freely to every extremity, there 
is no need of any other organization. In the great 
majority, however, there is need of such societies 
and will be, until, like gentle ministrations in our 
times of weakness and suffering, they have charmed 



92 TKREK LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

away the evil, and can give up this extra service to 
retire gracefully into less conspicuous and more 
potent work for the happy household. You have 
heard of the girl who married* a troublesome suitor 
^^in order to get rid of him." Even so we can get 
rid of these societies by blending them in holy wed- 
lock with the church, making their zeal and activity 
pervade the whole body. 

2. Urgent Appeals. 

A condition of general apathy calls for frequent 
stimulation and special efforts. There is no imme- 
diate prospect of a time when every pastor will 
reach all the unconverted in the community and de- 
velop all the gifts and graces of his church, leav- 
ing no occasion for a visiting brother to gather in 
converts, or to stir the membership to duty. In 
many places it is a fixed habit not to expect conver- 
sions save at the annual protracted meeting or 
under the direction of a traveling evangelist, nor to 
care for missions except once a year, and under the 
eloquence of a secretary. Giving is then from im- 
pulse, rather than principle,. and as in the use of 
bodily stimulants, reaction follows, and the last 
state is worse than the first. 

The obvious remedy is system in benevolence. 
Paul enjoined upon the churches in Galatia and at 



A WIDER VIEW 93 

Corinth to lay by in store on the first day of every 
week (i Cor. i6 : i, 2). This to be sure was for a 
special collection and lacks the marks of universal 
"law ; but it suggests an excellent practical rule. 
The New Testament lays down very clearly the 
principles and motives for acceptable worship in 
giving (see especially 2 Cor. 8 and 9). The ab- 
sence of any detailed plan leaves us free to awaken 
fresh interest by changing from time to time. The 
implement ought to be suited to the man who is to 
handle it. By all means have a plan, the best you 
can devise, but work it patiently. Envelopes for 
the collection of money were introduced among us 
I believe, less than twenty years ago, and first by 
Mission Boards for their collections. They have 
been adopted by hundreds of churches to raise 
means for current support, and generally with ex- 
cellent results. There is no virtue in the printed 
and folded paper. The efficacy lies in reminders to 
contribute regularly and frequently. Special ap- 
peals heal over the financial trouble slightly and 
temporarily ; systematic giving will work a com- 
plete and permanent cure. 

3. Inciming Debt. 

General indifference and the efficacy of strong 
appeals have encouraged an essentially faulty 



94 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

policy. In order to stir the brotherhood the Boards 
have felt compelled to lead public sentiment and to 
draw upon the future in making appointments and 
appropriations. Debt is thus incurred and large 
sums must be paid for interest on loans. This is 
sometimes right, sometimes necessary. Calls come 
for men to strengthen stations already occupied 
or to open new ones on inviting fields. The men 
offer themselves and give credible evidence of hav- 
ing been called of God. The Board dares not op- 
pose what the Lord seems to command. And so, 
I repeat, it is sometimes right to walk by faith in 
the brethren as well as in God. Yet the habitual 
borrowing of money for benevolence is inconsistent 
and evil. During the past year of unparalleled de- 
pression it has brought nearly all the Boards of all 
denominations in our country into great straits. 
The situation calls not only for temporary relief 
and that right speedily, but even more for better 
hygiene, to prevent recurrence and promote a radical 
change. 

It is often said that we need more of business 
principles in our benevolent work. True, to a certain 
extent. Economy, punctuality, honesty, accuracy, 
a full and fair exhibit, are needed in every one who 
handles other people's money. Bat there is an an- 
tipodal difference between the aims of business and 



A WIDER VIEW 95 

of benevolence, and there ought to be correspond- 
ing difference in poHcy. The business man aims 
to get ; the benevolent man, to give. The former 
invests for the sake of a greater return in the same 
coinage to himself or his heirs ; the latter invests 
temporal things for the sake of eternal gains, and 
those to accrue primarily to the benefit of another. 
The one does right to venture, to deal on credit, 
to use the stores of banking capital, in order to 
push his business ; of the other his gift is accepta- 
ble ^' according as a man hath, not according as he 
hath not" (2 Cor. 8 : 12). 

Various schemes have been proposed for getting 
rid and keeping rid of debt. Some look simple 
and easy. But unfortunately a simple solution of 
a many-sided question is usually applicable to a par- 
ticular case rather than to the whole problem. The 
doctrinaire sees a matter in one aspect and has no 
idea that there is any other. If confronted with 
facts that cannot be wheeled into harmony with 
his theory, he shuts his eyes against them. Let us 
therefore be wary of any short and summary 
method, any potent panacea of man's devising, 
lest it do more harm than good. There are 
three plans that have found earnest advocates and 
have been to some extent subjected to the test of 
actual trial. 



96 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

(i) To appropriate only funds collected during the 
previous year and actually on hand. My early life 
was spent in an Association composed almost en- 
tirely of country churches. About the year 1843 the 
body determined to conduct independent missions. 
The idea excited a growing interest. The breth- 
ren began to set apart portions of their fields, the 
sisters to designate certain of their poultry, boys 
and girls to work eagerly, all to make money for 
missions. In a few years considerable sums were 
regularly brought up to the annual meeting and 
missionaries were appointed in the State, among 
the Indians, and in China. Not a cent was appro- 
priated until it was actually in the treasury and 
payments were promptly made. This ^'old Go- 
shen plan'' worked excellently till 1862, then fell 
to pieces, and has never been restored. It suited 
flush times, and gave way under the first severe 
strain after the enthusiasm of novelty had passed. 

There are further objections to this plan. It 
leaves funds long idle and exposed to loss. It re- 
quires annual alterations in the working force ac- 
cording to changes in receipts. For home fields a 
reduction of force may work no great hardship ; 
very different is the case with fields in which trans- 
portation to and fro costs as much as a year's sup- 
port, and in which a worker needs several years to 



A WIDER VIEW 97 

acquire effective knowledge of the people and their 
language. Moreover there is danger in using the 
surgeon's knife on vital organs. When a church in 
debt resolves to dispense with a pastor until its 
finances are in better shape, it usually goes from 
bad to worse ; and more surely would a Mission 
Board with a diminished force of missionaries. 

(2) It has been proposed to divide up into four 
nearly equal districts the area from which supplies 
are drawn, and get the brethren in the first district 
to forward collections in the first quarter of the 
financial year, the second in the second, and so on. 
This would diminish the main advantage of draw- 
ing from a large rather than a small area, namely, 
that it often counteracts the effect of drouth or de- 
pression in one section by prosperity in another, so 
that there may be equality, the abundance of one 
supplying another's want (2 Cor. 8 : 13-15). But a 
worse defect is that it will not be adopted and can- 
not be enforced. Under Baptist polity the churches 
have separate sovereignty in all local matters and 
purely voluntary co-operation in matters of common 
concern. The bond that unites them is an inner 
life, not an external organization. 

(3) There remains a third plan not so simple in 
theory, not easy to put into practice, nor promising 
anything more than gradual approximation to the 



98 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

desired end. But it can be worked little by little, 
and every step taken will be a clear gain. Please 
give it careful consideration. It involves co-opera- 
tion between the missionaries abroad and their sup- 
porters at home. Let each missionary agree, so 
far as may be consistent with his necessities, to 
draw his support more or less irregularly, accepting 
smaller allowance during the season when contribu- 
tions are usually small, more when the tide of lib- 
erality rises. Some could not do this. '' The la- 
borer is worthy of his hire," and in case of need it 
must not be kept back. But not a few could with- 
out serious inconvenience get along for several 
months on less, with the assurance that it will be 
made up to them later. The same thing could and 
by all means should be done in the matter of home 
expenses. This would at once afford some little 
relief and, what is more to the purpose, would show 
to contributors that we call for no more than is act- 
ually and pressingly necessary. With this check 
upon a uniform outflow, let us plead with our peo- 
ple to reform the habit, indulged by so many, 
of giving to missions only once a year. South- 
ern planters in former times received their money 
upon the sale of annual crops. It was the cus- 
tom to settle bills and make contributions only 
once a year. The better features of that civiliza- 



A WIDER VIEW 99 

tion have passed away ; why should we retain the 
worse ? Business methods have been revolution- 
ized ; why not change also the monetary methods of 
religious bodies ? Worship in giving ought to be 
frequent, possibly in larger amounts at some sea- 
sons than at others, but something at every season. 
If we could only get the men to do as the good 
women have been doing for years, gathering all the 
while and remitting quarterly, the harassment of 
debt and the burden of interest charges would be 
abolished. Some of our best churches, in spite of 
all we can do or say, will deprecate the frequency 
of calls, forgetting how often they themselves 
must call on the Lord for his help, and wall con- 
tinue to walk in the ''good, old way." But if the 
younger brethren — nay if half of them — will work 
earnestly and patiently along this line in all future 
pastorates, a great deal can be accomplished within 
five years. 

4. Special Objects. 

Another and the last mistake I shall mention has 
been made by encouraging gifts to specific objects. 
All of us appreciate most readily what is concrete 
and particular ; we apprehend with difficulty what 
is general, still more what is abstract. It is easy to 
raise twenty dollars to buy Brother A. a pony for 



lOO THRBK IvKCTURES ON MISSIONS 

ranche work in Mexico, or thirty dollars to support a 
devout Bible woman, or a promising schoolgirl at 
Canton. Any definite object is easy to attain. And 
unquestionably a special object is better than none. 
But we ought to understand that mission work is 
for our education as well as for the salvation of the 
heathen, and the easy things in education belong to 
the horn books and the pictorial primers. It is 
hard to rise to the general idea of foreign missions, 
with all its hundred particulars ; harder still to 
think of all mission work at home and abroad as 
one and the same ; hardest of all to soar up and up 
until we clearly see the glory of our Saviour as the 
one end that makes life worth living. Yet only by 
thus struggling upward can we '' attain unto the 
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ '' 
(Eph. 4 : 13). 

I have sometimes reveled in the fancy that I 
myself, and you as well, preach nearly forty hours 
every day and that in a multitude of differing dia- 
lects. Yesterday when our clocks, set to ninetieth 
meridian time, were striking high noon, this morn- 
ing's sun was gilding the spires of Christian churches 
on the Fiji Islands. At three p. m. it began to beam 
upon the empire of the Rising Sun, and you and I 
went forth, in the person of our representatives 
there, to tell the Japanese, elated with military sue- 



A WIDER VIEW lOI 

cess, about the Prince of Peace, and to urge upon 
them in their hour of worldly victory an uncondi- 
tional surrender to Christ. At four we began to 
use the strangely inflected gutterals of the Chinese 
and to plead with those defeated, dejected millions 
to turn from their vain worship of dead ancestors 
to the true and living God. At midnight, contin- 
uing still to talk to thronging Asiatics, we took up 
the story in vocal Italian, and told the proud de- 
scendants of the ancient masters of the world 
about the meek and lowly King, who demands not 
gorgeous liturgies, but the sacrifice of a contrite 
heart. About the same time in spite of the sultry 
blaze of an equatorial sun we talked in liquid Yoru- 
ban to the down-trodden and discolored sons of 
superstition, pointing them to the Fountain opened 
for sin and for uncleanness. This morning before 
three o'clock we had crossed the South Atlantic and 
tuned our tongues to musical Portuguese to tell Bra- 
zilians, long oppressed by despotic hierarchy, about 
the great High Priest, the shepherd and bishop of 
souls. Then we have had opportunity all day in 
our own broad land and our native tongue to tell of 
redeeming love. The light of a setting sun lingers 
till eight or nine by our clocks upon the Sierras of 
Mexico and gives us opportunity in sonorous Span- 
ish to tell the sons of ancient Aztecs and of Cor- 



103 THRKK I.KCTURES ON MISSIONS 

tez's followers, about the Prince and Saviour who 
gave himself for us. We have been thus preach- 
ing, for in all these lands we have partners in the 
same great firm, whose head is Christ, whose power 
is the Spirit, whose business is finding jewels and 
fitting them to shine in an amaranthine crown. Is 
not this better than to confine our interest to one 
land or one man ? '' The intellect is measured by 
the thoughts it entertains ; the soul is no larger 
than its desires." The Master in bidding us ''disci- 
ple all the nations" sets before us no less an object 
than the re-conquest of a rebellious world, an ideal 
suited to expand the mind and thrill the heart into 
sympathy with himself. This is the chief element 
in what is called ''the reflex influence of missions." 
As quaint old Bunyan sings : 

There was a man, and some did count him mad, 
The more he gave away, the more he had. 

III. A FORWARD GLANCE. 

So much of the allotted time has been devoted 
to the review and criticism of the work of the past 
that we must be content with only a few words of 
exhortation in view of the future. 

Among many striking aphorisms that have fallen 
from the lips of Dr. T. P. Crawford, none has im- 



A WIDER VIEW 103 

pressed me more than his distinction between the 
three great races of mankind : '' The Asiatic, or 
brown race, lives in the past ; the African, or black 
race, in the present ; the Aryan, or white race, in 
the future." The ideal of a Chinaman is to walk 
in the footsteps of his fathers; the Negro cares 
little for his ancestry, even less for posterity ; the 
European counts past attainments only means to 
larger achievements, holding with Tennyson, 

That men may rise on stepping stones, 
Of their dead selves, to higher things. 

Accepting in general the distinction, we may, 
however, ask whether it depends on racial differ- 
ences or on diversity in the dominant religious 
ideas, namely : ancestral worship ; fetichism, seeking 
relief from present fear; and Christianity, with its 
onward and upward look. Certainly there is here a 
connection, one way or the other, of cause and effect. 
Our risen Lord is represented as sitting on the 
right hand of the Majesty on high, '' henceforth 
expecting till his enemies be made the footstool 
of his feet" (Heb. 10 : 13), and his people, toil- 
ing here below, are ^* looking for and earnestly de- 
siring the coming of the day of God " (2 Peter 
3 : 12). 

The outlook of missions is radiant. Never be- 



I04 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

fore was the world more accessible ; never before 
were the resources in the hands of Christian people 
greater ; never before have the hindrances been 
more insidious or more dangerous. As to Paul at 
Ephesus '' a great door and effectual is opened, . . 
and there are many adversaries" (i Cor. i6 19). 
This is not a time for dreamy mysticism, to which 
German philosophy would lull us ; nor for a senti- 
mental optimism, such as dominates the magazine 
literature of our day ; nor yet for a blind faith, 
which being without works is dead. The situation 
calls for vigilance, activity, trust in God, and pa- 
tience in well-doing. As was so often said to 
Joshua, let me say to you, young brethren, '^ Be 
strong and of good courage." Before you are high 
walls and rugged mountains, covetousness in your 
own camp, and many a hard battle with the enemy. 
Only be strong and of good courage, for final and 
complete victory is secure, nay, almost in sight. 

Spanning the horizon of the future glows a ruddy 
light from the promised coming of Christ ^* without 
sin unto salvation." Do you ask when and how .^ 
Will it be before or after the thousand years of 
which the seer in Patmos spake 1 What mean the 
gorgeous, symbolic prophecies of the end, that have 
come down to us, some from the Old, some in the 
New Testarnent } Frankly, I neither profess to 



A WIDER VIEW 105 

know, nor do I believe it is given to any other to 
know the exact interpretation of unfulfilled predic- 
tions. When God's glory passed by in the mount, 
his servant Moses was permitted to see only the 
hinder parts ; can we expect to look with clear vision 
on its forefront ? Pardon the Hibernianism of say- 
ing that if I thought I knew when and how the Son 
of Man will come again, I should be sure that I 
was mistaken, for it involves matters which no mor- 
tal can know. Eternity will be all too short to find 
out the wealth of meaning in God's gracious pur- 
poses concerning his Son. We know that each one 
of us shall die ; in mercy, the time and the manner 
are hidden. We know that it w^ill be well wdth the 
righteous and ill with the wicked, but we can have 
no adequate conception of the woes of the lost, or 
of the joys of the redeemed. The future is in God's 
hand ; on us he lays present duties, and graciously 
gives us lessons from the past to make the pathway 
plainer, while he spans and lights the future with 
splendid promises, so that forgetting what is behind 
we may press on toward the goal. 

The needs of the present are a genuine and wide- 
spread revival of interest in the work of the Lord. 
Conspicuously posted in a beautiful Sunday-school 
room I once saw this motto : " Our i\im, a Home 
in Heaven." I pitied the artist who conceived the 



Io6 THREE LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

design ; ths superintendent who hung it upon the 
wall ; the children who admired it week after week. 
Unworthy ideal tainted with selfishness. Let us 
rather blazon high up the nobler words : Our Aim, 
to Glorify God in Winning a Lost World. Ought 
we not somewhere to leave the first principles of 
Christ, repentance, faith, baptism, laying on of 
hands, resurrection, and judgment, and press on unto 
perfection ? And this wdll we do, if God permit. 

Again, we need a firmer faith in our cause. 
The Commission to go is set by our Lord as a 
sort of triumphal arch supported on two columns 
— all authority in heaven and on earth stands on 
one side, on the other the promise of his continual 
presence. Do we believe these truths ? To doubt 
either is to be in poor condition for obeying the 
command. '^ Lord, increase our faith," we pray, 
and he sends the answer in opportunities to ex- 
ercise what little we have that it may be in- 
creased. We need also a more complete consecra- 
tion of all we are and all we have to ''him that 
loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood " 
(Rev. I : 5). Nothing among men is baser than 
ingratitude ; nothing'more ennobling than to cherish 
the memory of kindnesses received. 

An even greater need is a fuller realization that 
it is '' not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, 



A WIDER VIEW • 107 

saith the Lord of hosts," a constant recognition that 
missionaries should be prepared and chosen and sent 
forth by the Holy Ghost, and that their preaching 
will prove effective in proportion to the presence of 
the Paraclete, convicting the world of sin and of 
righteousness and of judgment. 

There have been two principal theories of as- 
tronomy. The Ptolemaic made earth the center 
and found the fixed stars revolving about it in per- 
fect circles ; sun, moon, and planets wandering to 
and fro in curious loops and inexplicable curves ; 
while erratic comets were quite beyond the realm 
of law and frightened men as portents of evil. The 
Copernican puts the sun as center of our system, 
and finds the earth and all the rest moving about it 
in perfect obedience to a single and simple law, and 
this sun, with its attendant worlds, moving under 
the same law, around some far-off center in the im- 
mensity of space. There are two and only two 
theories of life. Make self the center and many 
things seem to go beautifully. ^* Men will praise 
thee when thou doest well to thyself." But when 
the future comes in view, when the great issues of 
eternity assert themselves, life on this theory be- 
comes inextricable confusion, ending in utter dark- 
ness. Make Christ the center, and behold how 
under the simple law of love there is evolved a sys- 



Io8 THRHK LECTURES ON MISSIONS 

tern surpassing ^' the harmony of the spheres," by 
as much as the scheme of redemption devised in 
the Father's loving heart excels the material uni- 
verse fashioned by his fingers. 

My task is done, unworthily of the great theme 
assigned, for that is beyond the reach of human 
language, unworthily of the occasion which has 
called us together, and yet, I humbly trust, in such 
way as to lead many, who have listened so kindly, 
to think more and pray more and give more for 
the spread of the good news of redeeming love, 
and with ''the sweet singer of Israel" I may close 
by saying : '' Blessed be the Lord God, the God of 
Israel, who only doeth wondrous things ; and blessed 
be his glorious name forever ; and let the whole 
earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen." 




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